Quotations: Ability

Ability is of little account without opportunity.
Napoleon Bonaparte

Natural ability without education has more often attained to glory and virtue than education without natural ability.
Cicero

Big jobs usually go to the men who prove their ability to outgrow small ones.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

A man must not deny his manifest abilities, for that is to evade his obligations.
William Feather

Ability will never catch up with the demand for it.
Malcolm Stevenson Forbes

Great ability develops and reveals itself increasingly with every new assignment.
Baltasar Gracian

We don't know who we are until we see what we can do.
Martha Grimes

Perhaps the most valuable result of all education is the ability to make yourself do the thing you have to do, when it ought to be done, whether you like it or not; it is the first lesson that ought to be learned; and however early a man's training begins, it is probably the last lesson that he learns thoroughly.
Thomas H. Huxley

As simple as it sounds, we all must try to be the best person we can: by making the best choices, by making the most of the talents we've been given.
Mary Lou Retton

It is a great ability to be able to conceal one's ability.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Martyrdom... is the only way in which a man can become famous without ability.
George Bernard Shaw

I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestioned ability of a man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor.
Henry David Thoreau

Ability may get you to the top, but it takes character to keep you there.
John Wooden

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