Able Quotes - Page 40

• My father invested his money so securely in the banking business that he was never able to get any of it out again.

  Thomas Bailey Aldrich

  Father, Banking

  Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1872). “The Story of a Bad Boy”, p.11

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• If your divines are not philosophers, your philosophy will neither be divine, nor able to divine.

  Julius Charles Hare

  Philosophy, Philosopher, Divine

  Julius Charles Hare, Augustus William Hare, Edward Hayes Plumptre (1871). “Guesses at Truth”, p.502

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• The able have no desire to appear to be so, and this is part of their ability.

  John Lancaster Spalding

  Desire, Ability

  John Lancaster Spalding (1901). “Aphorisms and Reflections: Conduct, Culture and Religion”

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• A principal aim of education is to give students a taste for literature, for the books of life and power, and to accomplish this, it is necessary that their minds be held aloof from the babblement and discussions of the hour, that they may accustom themselves to take interest in the words and deeds of the greatest men, and so make themselves able and worthy to shape a larger and nobler future; but if their hours of leisure are spent over journals and reviews, they will, in later years, become the helpless victims of the newspaper habit.

  John Lancaster Spalding

  Book, Men, Years

  John Lancaster Spalding (1901). “Aphorisms and Reflections: Conduct, Culture and Religion”

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• The highest strength is acquired not in overcoming the world, but in overcoming one's self. Learn to be cruel to thyself, to withstand thy appetites, to bear thy sufferings, and thou shalt become free and able.

  John Lancaster Spalding

  Self, Suffering, Overcoming

  John Lancaster Spalding (1901). “Aphorisms and Reflections: Conduct, Culture and Religion”

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• A Wise man knows that much of what he says and does is commonplace and trivial. His thoughts are not all solemn and sacred in his own eyes. He is able to laugh at himself and is not offended when others make him a subject whereon to exercise their wit.

  John Lancaster Spalding

  Wise, Eye, Exercise

  John Lancaster Spalding (1901). “Aphorisms and Reflections: Conduct, Culture and Religion”

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• We teachers can only help the work going on, as servants wait upon a master. We then become witnesses to the development of the human soul; the emergence of the New Man who will no longer be the victim of events but, thanks to his clarity of vision, will become able to direct and to mold the future of mankind.

  Maria Montessori

  Teacher, Men, Waiting

  "The Absorbent Mind" by Maria Montessori, Part I, (p. 9), 1949.

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• One who has drunk at the fountain of spiritual happiness says good-by of his own accord to the satisfactions that come from a higher professional status ... What is the greatest sign of success for a teacher thus transformed? It is to be able to say, "The children are now working as if I did not exist.

  Maria Montessori

  Spiritual, Teacher, Children

  "The Absorbent Mind" by Maria Montessori, Ch. 27, (p. 283), 1949.

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• I discovered that I had, in the past two decades, written a far greater amount in the essay form than I remembered. Certainly I have written enough of it to demonstrate that I harbor no disdain for literary journalism or just plain journalism, under whose sponsorship I have been able to express much that has fascinated me, or alarmed me, or amused me, or otherwise engaged my attention when I was not writing a book.

  William Styron

  Book, Writing, Past

  William Styron (1993). “This Quiet Dust and Other Writings”, Vintage

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• Few, as I have said, are the humorists who can induce this state. To master and dissolve us, to give us the joy of being worn down and tired out with laughter, is a success to be won by no man save in virtue of a rare staying-power. Laughter becomes extreme only if it be consecutive. There must be no pauses for recovery. Touch-and-go humour, however happy, is not enough. The jester must be able to grapple his theme and hang on to it, twisting it this way and that, and making it yield magically all manner of strange and precious things.

  Max Beerbohm

  Laughter, Tired, Recovery

  Max Beerbohm (2006). “And Even Now”, p.184, 1st World Publishing

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• How much of our literature, our political life, our friendships and love affairs, depend on being able to talk peacefully in a bar!

  John Wain

  Political, Love And Friendship, Bars

  "Simpson's Contemporary Quotations". Book by James B. Simpson, p. 301, 1988.

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• In playwriting, you've got to be able to write dialogue. And if you write enough of it and let it flow enough, you'll probably come across something that will give you a key as to structure. I think the process of writing a play is working back and forth between the moment and the whole. The moment and the whole, the fluidity of the dialogue and the necessity of a strict construction. Letting one predominate for a while and coming back and fixing it so that eventually what you do, like a pastry chef, is frost your mistakes, if you can.

  David Mamet

  Mistake, Writing, Thinking

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• If the ability to tell right from wrong should turn out to have anything to do with the ability to think, then we must be able to "demand" its exercise from every sane person, no matter how erudite or ignorant, intelligent or stupid, he may happen to be. Kant in this respect almost alone among the philosophers was much bothered by the common opinion that philosophy is only for the few, precisely because of its moral implications.

  Hannah Arendt

  Stupid, Philosophy, Exercise

  "The Life of the Mind". Book by Hannah Arendt, p. 13, 1978.

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• He alone can remit sins who is appointed our Master by the Father of all; He only is able to discern obedience from disobedience.

  Clement of Alexandria

  Father, Sin, Obedience

  "'Noble Thoughts in Noble Language" edited by Henry Southgate, (p. 2), 1871.

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• Love is all there is, it makes the world go 'round Love and only love, it can't be denied No matter what you think about it You just won't be able to do without it Take a tip from one who's tried

  Bob Dylan

  Love, Thinking, World

  Song: I Threw It All Away, Album: Nashville Skyline

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• There is no military solution to the war in Iraq. Our troops can help suppress the violence, but they cannot solve its root causes. And all the troops in the world won't be able to force Shia, Sunni, and Kurd to sit down at a table, resolve their differences, and forge a lasting peace. In fact, adding more troops will only push this political settlement further and further into the future, as it tells the Iraqis that no matter how much of a mess they make, the American military will always be there to clean it up.

  Barack Obama

  Military, War, Roots

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• In the long term, we've got to defeat an ideology of hate with an ideology of hope. There' a reason why people like [Al-Qaida leader Osama] bin Laden are able to recruit suiciders, because if you don't have hope, you're attracted to an ideology which says, it's OK to kill people and kill yourself.

  George W. Bush

  Hate, Long, People

  "Marking Fifth Anniversary of Terror Attacks, Bush Tours 9/11 Sites". www.haaretz.com. September 11, 2006.

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• Philosophy, beginning in wonder, as Plato and Aristotle said, is able to fancy everything different from what it is. It sees the familiar as if it were strange, and the strange as if it were familiar. It can take things up and lay them down again. It rouses us from our native dogmatic slumber and breaks up our caked prejudices.

  William James

  Plato, Philosophy, Slumber

  William James (2016). “William James: Essays and Lectures”, p.60, Routledge

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• Ladies are always of great use to the party they espouse, and never fail to win over numbers to it. Lovers, according to Sir William Petty's computation, make at least the third part of sensible men of the British nation; and it has been an uncontroverted maxim in all ages, that though a husband is sometimes a stubborn sort of a creature, a lover is always at the devotion of his mistress. By this means, it lies in the power of every fine woman, to secure at least half a dozen able-bodied men to his Majesty's service.

  Joseph Addison

  Husband, Lying, Party

  Joseph Addison (1860). “The Freeholder. Swift's notes on the Free-holder. The Plebian, by Sir Richard Steele, with The Old whig, by Mr. Addison. The Lover”, p.17

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• Everything in life turns out to be a distraction from the real thing you want to do. There are a million distractions and when I was a kid I was very disciplined. I knew that the other kids weren't. I was the one able to do the thing, not because I had more talent, maybe less, but because they simply weren't applying themselves.

  Woody Allen

  Real, Kids, Want

  "Woody Allen Interview – Vicky Cristina Barcelona". Interview with Steve 'Frosty' Weintraub, collider.com. August 15, 2008.

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• A man must be able to affirm, I know for certain, that what I teach is the only Word of the high Majesty of God in heaven, his final conclusion and everlasting, unchangeable truth, and whatsoever concurs and agrees not with this doctrine, is altogether false, and spun by the devil.

  Martin Luther

  Men, Heaven, Devil

  Martin Luther (1848). “The table talk or familiar discourse of Martin Luther, tr. by W. Hazlitt”, p.18

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• To her British lover about to climb in bed with 80-something Mae: She said that she hoped soon to be able to say what Paul Revere said - 'The British are coming'. This was the last one-liner Mae ever uttered on film.

  Mae West

  Bed, Lasts, Lovers

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• How many people is the earth able to sustain?

  Isaac Asimov

  People, Earth

  1971 Der Spiegel.

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• If you were to insist I was a robot, you might not consider me capable of love in some mystic human sense, but you would not be able to distinguish my reactions from that which you would call love so what difference would it make?

  Isaac Asimov

  Differences, Robots, Might

  Isaac Asimov (2012). “Foundation's Edge”, p.420, Spectra

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• Create all the happiness you are able to create: remove all the misery you are able to remove. Every day will allow you to add something to the pleasure of others, or to diminish something of their pains. And for every grain of enjoyment you sow in the bosom of another, you shall find a harvest in your own bosom; while every sorrow which you pluck out from the thoughts and feelings of a fellow creature shall be replaced by beautiful peace and joy in the sanctuary of your soul.

  Jeremy Bentham

  Beautiful, Pain, Joy

  "Will this man make you happy?" by Stuart Jeffries, www.theguardian.com. June 24, 2008.

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