Quotes & Sayings About Ability And Achievement

By loving them for more than their abilities we show our children that they are much more than the sum of their accomplishments. — Eileen Kennedy-Moore

The greatest barrier to achievement and success is not lack of talent or ability but rather the feeling that achievement and success, above a certain level, are outside our self-concept-our image of who we are and what is appropriate to us. — Nathaniel Branden

In the race of life, you need self confidence, courage and faith in your abilities to win the race. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Here was a stupendous possibility of achievement. If we could produce electric effects of the required quality, this whole planet and the conditions of existence on it could be transformed. The sun raises the water of the oceans and winds drive it to distant regions where it remains in a state of most delicate balance. If it were in our power to upset it when and wherever desired, this mighty life-sustaining stream could be at will controlled. We could irrigate arid deserts, create lakes and rivers and provide motive power in unlimited amounts. This would be the most efficient way of harnessing the sun to the uses of man. The consummation depended on our ability to develop electric forces of the order of those in nature. — Nikola Tesla

The first step toward creating an improved future is developing the ability to envision it. VISION will ignite the fire of passion that fuels our commitment to do WHATEVER IT TAKES to achieve excellence. Only VISION allows us to transform dreams of greatness into the reality of achievement through human action. VISION has no boundaries and knows no limits. Our VISION is what we become in life. — Tony Dungy

Just as an individual's ability to delay gratification at a young age is a powerful predictor of future academic and professional achievement, discipline is also central to the long-run economic health of nations. — Peter Blair Henry

To have an extraordinary quality of life you need two skills: the science of achievement (the ability to take anything you envision and make it real) and the art of fulfillment (this allows you to enjoy every moment of it. — Tony Robbins

God's greatest gift to mankind is our intellect. Even for those of you who are not of the faithful, the sheer logic alone cannot be denied. Education lifts a people to greater ability and achievement. — Aleksandra Layland

What made America great was her ability to transform her own dream into hope for all mankind. America did not tell the millions of men and women who came from every country in the world and who -- with their hands, their intelligence and their heart -- built the greatest nation in the world: 'Come, and everything will be given to you.' She said: 'Come, and the only limits to what you'll be able to achieve will be your own courage and your own talent. — Nicolas Sarkozy

Throughout my career, I have discovered and rediscovered a simple
truth.It is this: the ability to concentrate single-mindedly on your
most important task, to do it well and to finish it completely, is the
key to great success, achievement, respect, status and happiness in
life. — Brian Tracy

Fortune would be in a hard mood indeed if it allowed such a combination of knowledge, experience, ability, and enthusiasm to achieve nothing. — Robert Falcon Scott

During the Renaissance there was a renewed interest in the relationship between genius, melancholia, and madness. A stronger distinction was made between sane melancholies of high achievement and individuals whose insanity prevented them from using their ability. The eighteenth century witnessed a sharp change in attitude; balance and rational thought, rather than "inspiration" and emotional extremes, were seen as the primary components of genius. — Kay Redfield Jamison

The ability to concentrate singlemindedly on your most important task, to do it well and to finish it completely, is the key to great success, achievement, respect, status, and happiness in life. This key insight is the heart and soul of this book. This — Brian Tracy

the ability to attend to a task and stick to long-term goals is the greatest predictor of success, greater than academic achievement, extracurricular involvement, test scores, and IQ. She calls this grit, and first discovered its power in the classroom, while teaching seventh-grade math. She left teaching to pursue research on her hunch, and her findings have changed the way educators perceive student potential. Gritty students succeed, and failure strengthens grit like no other crucible. — Jessica Lahey

My ability to persuade my wife to marry me [was] quite my most brilliant achievement ... Of course, it would have been impossible for any ordinary man to have got through what I had to go through in peace and war without the devoted aid of what we call, in England, one's better half. — Winston Churchill

The researchers summarized: "A human mind is a wandering mind, and a wandering mind is an unhappy mind. The ability to think about what is not happening is a cognitive achievement that comes at an emotional cost.". Long ago, Buddhists reached much the same conclusion. — David Michie

Bitcoin is a remarkable cryptographic achievement and the ability to create something which is not duplicable in the digital world has enormous value — Eric Schmidt

Among the many values that art can offer, the subtlest one - and, perhaps, the most inspiring - is the sight of talent, talent as such, the spectacle of human ability actualizing its best potential. In the presence of a great achievement, you feel as if you were seeing two art works: one is the object before you, the other is the artist who made himself capable of creating it. — Ayn Rand

You are a special breed that has never been. You are the highest stratum of the society. You belong to a class that is beyond compare. You are full of superiority that gives especial worth which is meritoriously near the standard or model and eminently good of its kind. You are an expression of distinction, the perfection of superbness and effulgence of class. You are meant for the highest crown of success, created for affecting lives, configured for goodness, packaged to be set apart and set great store by, and ordained to be widely known and honored for greater achievement. You are a rare breed with divine and inherent ability to reign, rule, dominate and prosper in every way of life. — Ifeanyi Enoch Onuoha

there is no higher achievement for a southern woman than the ability to eat barbecue and walk away stain free. — Julie Murphy

Sunflowers, Not Facing the Sun (A Poem)
I stand tall
As gracious as one could be
Blooming to my best
As slender as it touches my being
Everyone else is facing the sun
Bending towards its unfathomable galore
They and I are both undoubtedly
Grown on the benevolence of life's essence
The brighter side mercilessly feeding desires unbound
By daunting the "courage to know" with each spin
Though, I am not able to face the sun the way they do
Yet, I learn from the knowledge bred within me
Beyond achievement markers, but an adverse ability
An opportunity to exercise my special self
From the cherubic attire of my blessed soul
To the unfathomable mystery the drape of this world hides
That I, by not facing the sun
Hunt the gems in the milieu of the human existence — Annie Ali

The achievement of freedom is hardly possible without the felt mourning. This ability to mourn, i.e, to give up the illusion of a happy childhood, can restore vitality and creativity if a person is able to experience that he was never loved as a child for what he was, but for his achievements, success and good qualities. And that he sacrificed his childhood for this love, this will shake him very deeply. — Alice Miller

Needless to say, under either system [socialism or fascism], the inequalities of income and standard of living are greater than anything possible under a free economy
and a man's position is determined, not by his productive ability and achievement, but by political pull and force. Under both systems, sacrifice is invoked as a magic, omnipotent solution in any crisis
and "the public good" is the altar on which victims are immolated. — Ayn Rand

The cord that tethers ability to success is both loose and elastic. It is easy to see fine qualities in successful books or to see unpublished manuscripts, inexpensive vodkas, or people struggling in any field as somehow lacking. It is easy to believe that ideas that worked were good ideas, that plans that succeeded were well designed, and that ideas and plans that did not were ill conceived. And it is easy to make heroes out of the most successful and to glance with disdain at the least. But ability does not guarantee achievement, nor is achievement proportional to ability. And so it is important to always keep in mind the other term in the equation - the role of chance ... What I've learned, above all, is to keep marching forward because the best news is that since chance does play a role, one important factor in success is under our control: the number of at bats, the number of chances taken, the number of opportunities seized. — Leonard Mlodinow

The American Dream is that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement. It is a difficult dream for the European upper classes to interpret adequately, and too many of us ourselves have grown weary and mistrustful of it. It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position. — James Truslow Adams

True achievement in any sphere of action depends upon real ability, and a strong, deep, whole-souled love. — Christian D. Larson

Teams that commit to decisions and standards do so because they know how to embrace two separate but related concepts: buy-in and clarity. Buy-in is the achievement of honest emotional support. Clarity is the removal of assumptions and ambiguity from a situation. Commitment is about a group of intelligent, driven individuals buying in to a decision precisely when they don't naturally agree. In other words, it's the ability to defy a lack of consensus. — Patrick Lencioni

The achievement of great things though comes from the ability to manage yourselfvery, very, very well. Or at least well enough where you almost become compulsive about getting certain things done. You have to set a standard for yourself that's.very, very, very high and you have to manage your thoughts to where they need to be allow yourself to be successful, at what your trying to do. — Kai Greene

Capitalism demands the best of every man - his rationality - and rewards him accordingly. It leaves every man free to choose the work he likes, to specialize in it, to trade his product for the products of others, and to go as far on the road of achievement as his ability and ambition will carry him. — Ayn Rand

The generality of mankind is lazy. What distinguishes men of genuine achievement from the rest of us is not so much their intellectual powers and aptitudes as their curiosity, their energy, their fullest use of their potentialities. Nobody really knows how smart or talented he is until he finds the incentives to use himself to the fullest. God has given us more than we know what to do with. — Sydney J. Harris

Creating a high-functioning education system requires all the strategies involved in building high-functioning organisations anywhere. It requires a deliberate and aggressive strategy to ensure extraordinary talent at every level of the system, from the superintendentcy to district offices to principalships to classrooms. It requires building systems for accountability; offering parents the ability to choose their public schools is the ultimate form of this. It requires building a strong culture at the system and school levels based on high expectations for student achievement. — Wendy Kopp

Government employees move up the ladder through educational credentials rather than merit. People are given jobs and promotions based on seniority, race and gender rather than ability or talent. Such a system often overlooks the deserving and rewards the incompetent. There is no payoff for achievement. — James Cook

Motivation and inspiration energize people, not by pushing them in the right direction as control mechanisms do but by satisfying basic human needs for achievement, a sense of belonging, recognition, self-esteem, a feeling of control over one's life, and the ability to live up to one's ideals. Such feelings touch us deeply and elicit a powerful response. — John P. Kotter

In my opinion, character is the most important determinant of a person's success, achievement and ability to handle adversity. — Tom Landry

The power of inner strength lies in the ability to overcome the adversities of life and pressing onward toward the achievement of the goal. — Lailah Gifty Akita

One of the problems when you become successful is that jealousy and envy inevitably follow. There are people - I categorize them as life's losers - who get their sense of accomplishment and achievement from trying to stop others. As far as I'm concerned, if they had any real ability they wouldn't be fighting me, they'd be doing something constructive themselves. — Donald J. Trump

Never a horse that can't be rode and never a rider that can't be throwed. (I'll pass this off as my own, but I really stole it from my father, a cowboy and rodeo rider in his younger years.) — Earle Gray

Once a musician has enough ability to get into a top music school, the thing that distinguishes one performer from another is how hard he or she works. That's it. And what's more, the people at the very top don't work just harder or even much harder than everyone else. They work much, much harder. — Malcolm Gladwell

Study skills really aren't the point. Learning is about one's relationship with oneself and one's ability to exert the effort, self-control, and critical self-assessment necessary to achieve the best possible results--and about overcoming risk aversion, failure, distractions, and sheer laziness in pursuit of REAL achievement. This is self-regulated learning. — Linda B. Nilson

Why cry about missed opportunities when you have the ability to smile at opportunities lived? The past has created who you are NOW, where we learn and grow from the past, never resting upon previous achievements or allowing past failure to paralyze us in our current endeavor. All that was has created us to be the best we currently are for our greatest hour is about to arise! — Greg Plitt

Obama has already demonstrated an extraordinary ability to change the limits of what one can say publicly. His greatest achievement up to now is that, in his refined non-provocative way, he has introduced into public speech topics which had hitherto been de facto unsayable: the continuing importance of race in politics, the positive role of atheists in public life, the necessity to talk with "enemies" like Iran or Hamas, and so on. This is just what US politics needs today more than anything, if it is to break out of its gridlock: new words which will change the way we think and act. — Slavoj Zizek

If this book has a lesson, it is that we are awfully lucky to be here-and by 'we' I mean every living thing. To attain any kind of life in this universe of ours appears to be quite an achievement. As humans we are doubly lucky, of course: We enjoy not only the privilege of existence but also the singular ability to appreciate it and even, in a multitude of ways, to make it better. It is a talent we have only barely begun to grasp. — Bill Bryson

Faith in yourself, in your friends, in your colleagues and most of all, faith in your ability to impact our future is the best strategy I know. — Seth Godin

To show your true ability is always, in a sense, to surpass the limits of your ability, to go a little beyond them: to dare, to seek, to invent; it is at such a moment that new talents are revealed, discovered, and realized — Simone De Beauvoir

When Ronaldo gave that little wink everyone interpreted it that he had got his team-mate sent off. You felt then that he would become a much criticised figure. But that's not really what happened. So for him to overcome all of that and emerge as one of the players of the season is quite a remarkable achievement. He is a phenomenal talent. He has tremendous pace, he goes past players and he has added the ability to shoot. He can also pick out team-mates. There is not a lot he cannot do now. I believe his game has improved immeasurably over the past couple of seasons. — Cristiano Ronaldo

They who lack talent expect things to happen without effort. They ascribe failure to a lack of inspiration or ability, or to misfortune, rather than to insufficient application. At the core of every true talent there is an awareness of the difficulties inherent in any achievement, and the confidence that persistence and patience something worthwhile will be realized. Thus talent is a species of vigor. (Eric Hoffer 1902-1983) — Eric Hoffer

The animals have desire, or appetite. But only humans have the ability not merely to desire things, but also the creative will to take responsibility for that desire and bring about the achievement of it. That creative ability resides in the nature of God, and he has passed it on to us. — Henry Cloud

A real leader has the ability to motivate others to their highest level of achievement; then gives them the opportunity and the freedom to grow. — Buck Rodgers

It is possible that an individual may be successful, largely because he conserves all his powers for individual achievement and does not put any of his energy into the training which will give him the ability to act with others. The individual acts promptly, and we are dazzled by his success while only dimly conscious of the inadequacy of his code. — Jane Addams

American parents, teachers, and children were far more likely than their Japanese and Chinese counterparts to believe that mathematical ability is innate; if you have it, you don't have to work hard, and if you don't have it, there's no point in trying. In contrast, most Asians regard math success, like achievement in any other domain, as a matter of persistence and plain hard work. Of course you will make mistakes as you go along; that's how you learn and improve. It doesn't mean you are stupid. — Carol Tavris