C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917.
Ability
Ability is of little account without opportunity.
Ability is a poor man’s wealth.
Ability in a man is knowledge which emanates from divine light.
Ability involves responsibility. Power to its last particle is duty.
The winds and waves are always on the side of the ablest navigators.
Consider well what your strength is equal to, and what exceeds your ability.
Ability wins us the esteem of the true men; luck that of the people.
Exigencies create the necessary ability to meet and to conquer them.
An able man shows his spirit by gentle words and resolute actions.
Every person is responsible for all the good within the scope of his abilities, and for no more.
The art of using moderate abilities to advantage wins praise, and often acquires more reputation than actual brilliancy.
As we advance in life we learn the limits of our abilities.
The wicked are always surprised to find ability in the good.
Men, like bullets, go farthest when they are smoothest.
I pride myself in recognizing and upholding ability in every party and wherever I meet it.
To become an able man in any profession, there are three things necessary,—nature, study, and practice.
We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing, while others judge us by what we have already done.
You are a devil at everything, and there is no kind of thing in the ’versal world but what you can turn your hand to.
Who does the best his circumstance allows, Does well, acts nobly; angels could no more.
Men who undertake considerable things, even in a regular way, ought to give us ground to presume ability.
The measure of capacity is the measure of sphere to either man or woman.
The possession of great powers no doubt carries with it a contempt for mere external show.
Natural ability can almost compensate for the want of every kind of cultivation; but no cultivation of the mind can make up for the want of natural ability.
To the very last, he [Napoleon] had a kind of idea; that, namely, of la carriere ouverte aux talent—the tools to him that can handle them.
No man is without some quality, by the due application of which he might deserve well of the world; and whoever he be that has but little in his power should be in haste to do that little, lest he be confounded with him that can do nothing.