Capability Quotes - Page 18

• Poetry is an ethic. By ethic I mean a secret code of behavior, a discipline constructed and conducted according to the capabilities of a man who rejects the falsifications of the categorical imperative.

  Jean Cocteau

  Mean, Men, Discipline

  "Diary of an Unknown". Book by Jean Cocteau, 1988.

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• There can be no doubt that Saddam Hussein has biological weapons and the capability to rapidly produce more, many more.

  Colin Powell

  Doubt, Hussein, Weapons

  Address to the United Nations Security Council, delivered 5 February 2003

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• I do not mean to call an elephant a vulgar animal, but if you think about him carefully, you will find that his nonvulgarity consists in such gentleness as is possible to elephantine nature-not in his insensitive hide, nor in his clumsy foot, but in the way he will lift his foot if a child lies in his way; and in his sensitive trunk, and still more sensitive mind, and capability of pique on points of honor.

  John Ruskin

  Children, Lying, Mean

  John Ruskin (1868). “pt. VI: Of leaf beauty. pt. VII: Of cloud beauty. pts. VIII-IX: Of ideas of relation”, p.278

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• If someone tries to tell you you are the greatest generation in the history of America, don't believe them. You aren't. You have the capability to be, but you aren't.

  Josh McDowell

  Believe, America, Trying

  "Why True Love Waits". Josh McDowell's talk in Ouray, Colorado, June 15, 2007.

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• In the judgment of design engineers, the ordinary means of communicating with a computer are entirely inadequate. [...] Graphical communication in some form or other is of vital importance in engineering as that subject is now conducted; we must either provide the capability in our computer systems, or take on the impossible task of training up a future race of engineers conditioned to think in a different way.

  Maurice Wilkes

  Communication, Mean, Thinking

  "Computers Then and Now". Journal of the ACM 15, Sect. 4, (pp. 1-7), January 1968.

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• We cannot continue to have an excellence gap with the rest of the world and intend to remain the [economic superpower] and [military superpower] of the planet. That's just not going to happen. We're in a position where unless we take action, we'll end up being the [France] of the 21st century: a lot of talk, but not a lot of strength behind it in terms of economic capability.

  Mitt Romney

  Military, Excellence, World

  Boston Globe, November 16, 2005.

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• I am excited to think that the development of commercial capabilities to send humans into low Earth orbit will likely result in so many more Earthlings being able to experience the transformative power of space flight.

  Buzz Aldrin

  Thinking, Space Flight, Orbit

  "NASA's Far-Out New Plans", February 02, 2010.

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• The whole technological revolution and evolution gives man tremendous capabilities for good, and it also gives individuals tremendous capability to carry out what result in lethal action.

  John O. Brennan

  Men, Giving, Revolution

  "Obama's Drone-Master". Interview with Reid Cherlin, www.gq.com. June 17, 2013.

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• The optimization of cosmic darkness and of Earth's location within the dark universe that sacrifices neither the material needs of human beings nor their capacity to gain knowledge about the universe reflects masterful engineering at a level far beyond human capability- and even imagination. It testifies of a supernatural, superintelligent, superpowerful, fully deliberate Creator.

  Hugh Jackman

  Dark, Sacrifice, Engineering

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• Only the general manager can mold the resources, processes, and values that affect innovation , into a coherent capability to develop and launch superior new products and services repeatedly.

  Clayton Christensen

  Innovation, Mold, Process

  Clayton M. Christensen (1999). “Innovation and the General Manager”, Irwin Professional Pub

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• Painting is... a correspondence between what you are and what you see. It's a moment when something is holding together in such a way that it is a universe in itself... Within this is a test and also a judgment upon yourself, your capabilities, your promises, and the part that you play in the world. And nobody else can test that for you. Certainly not the Museum of Modern Art.

  Milton Resnick

  Art, Museums, Play

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• I am not well suited to the tasks that are set before me today. Most of what I must do is either insulting to my intelligence, or far beyond my capabilities. This explains why I am so frustrated and full of rage most of the time.

  John S. Hall

  Insulting, Frustrated, Tasks

  "Daily Negations". Book by John S. Hall, 2007.

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• We've evolved a lot since 9/11 also, in terms of our law enforcement capabilities, our intelligence capabilities, military, counterterrorism.

  Barack Obama

  Military, Law, Enforcement

  Source: www.nbcnews.com

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• Most perfect self-understanding is the capability to directly (immediately) transcend dilemma, all problems, all seeking.

  Adi Da

  Wisdom, Self, Perfect

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• As time goes by, I'm increasingly impressed by how very special and timely it was that we got the degree of national commitment needed to put people on the Moon. For the first time, this nation was united in trying to develop an interplanetary capability. We've been trying to repeat that situation ever since.

  Buzz Aldrin

  Commitment, Moon, People

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• With support from institutions like the United Nations as well as the donor community, governments can strengthen their national technological and scientific capacities by devising policies to link up to research networks, encourage technology transfer, and build indigenous capabilities through education and collaborative projects.

  Talal Abu-Ghazaleh

  Technology, Government, Community

  Speech at the Eighth Session of the UN Commission on Science and Technology for Development, Palais de Nations, Geneva, Switzerland, May 23, 2005.

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• I would prefer to believe that a market in fetal organs would empower women to use their reproductive capabilities to their own economic advantage.

  Jacob M. Appel

  Believe, Empowering, Use

  "Are We Ready for a Market in Fetal Organs?". www.huffingtonpost.com. April 17, 2009.

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• Ronald Reagan makes me proud to be an American. His intelligence, capability, and Christian brotherhood are so inspiring and his way of leadership is just superb. I consider myself lucky to have been his leading lady in "The Bad Man" and a short subject reel and as a nation all together we are beyond fortunate to have the leadership of such fine people as the Reagan's.

  Laraine Day

  Christian, Men, People

  "A Conversaton with Laraine Day, Hollywood's Girl Next Door". The New York Times Interview, June 9, 1984.

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• Our Party's Songun-based revolutionary leadership, Songun-based politics, is a revolutionary mode of leadership and socialist mode of politics that gives top priority to military affairs, and defends the country, the revolution and socialism and dynamically pushes ahead with overall socialist construction by dint of the revolutionary mettle and combat capabilities of the People's Army.

  Kim Jong Il

  Country, Military, Party

  "The Songun-based Revolutionary Line Is a Great Revolutionary Line of Our Era and an Ever-victorious Banner of Our Revolution". Address to the senior officials of the Central Committee of the Worker's Party, January 29, 2003.

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• Let the Common School be expanded to its capabilities, let it be worked with the efficiency of which it is susceptible, and nine tenths of the crimes in the penal code would become obsolete; the long catalogue of human ills would be abridged; men would walk more safely by day; every pillow would be more inviolate by night; property, life, and character held by a stronger tenure; all rational hopes respecting the future brightened.

  Horace Mann

  School, Character, Night

  Horace Mann, William Bentley Fowle (1841). “Common School Journal”, p.15

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• I think of the self-actualizing man not as an ordinary man with something added, but rather as the ordinary man with nothing taken away. The average man is a full human being with dampened and inhibited powers and capabilities.

  Abraham Maslow

  Taken, Men, Thinking

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• There is a concern that the Internet could be used to commit crimes and that advanced encryption could disguise such activity. However, we do not provide the government with phone jacks outside our homes for unlimited wiretaps. Why, then, should we grant government the Orwellian capability to listen at will and in real time to our communications across the Web?

  John Ashcroft

  Real, Communication, Home

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• I believe the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction presents the greatest threat that the world has ever known. We are finding more and more countries who are acquiring technology - not only missile technology - and are developing chemical weapons and biological weapons capabilities to be used in theater and also on a long range basis. So I think that is perhaps the greatest threat that any of us will face in the coming years.

  William Cohen

  Country, Believe, Technology

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• Don't attempt to reform man. An adequately organized environment will permit humanity's original, innate capabilities to become successful.

  R. Buckminster Fuller

  Wisdom, Successful, Men

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• The primary cause of disorder and lawlessness today, as throughout history, is the poverty of the many in contrast to the affluence of the few. But a new element of unrest has been added: a growing awareness that mass poverty is caused by defective institutions that prevent our harnessing the physical capabilities of science, engineering, management and labor to create general affluence; in other words, a growing awareness that poverty in any country that is or can be industrialized, is man's not nature's fault.

  Louis O. Kelso

  Wisdom, Country, Men

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