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Capable Quotes

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Capable Quotes

“Quelque e tendue d'esprit que l'on ait, l'on n'est capable que d'une grande passion. However vast a man's spirit, he is only capable of one great passion.”

Men Spirit Passion Capable Great Passion

Author:Blaise Pascal

“What becomes decisive to a Justice's functioning on the Court in the large area within which his individuality moves is his general attitude toward law, the habits of the mind that he has formed or is capable of unforming, his capacity for detachment, his temperament or training for putting his passion behind his judgment instead of in front of it. The attitudes and qualities which I am groping to characterize are ingredients of what compendiously might be called dominating humility.”

Source: Felix Frankfurter on the Supreme Court: extrajudicial essays on the Court and the Constitution

“It may be broadly stated that.....of all animals kept for the recreation of mankind the horse is alone capable of exciting a passion that shall be absolutely hopeless.”

May Passion Animal Mankind Capable Exciting Horse Hopeless Recreation

Author:Bret Harte

“We take, and must continue to take, morally hazardous actions to preserve our civilization. We must exercise our power. But we ought neither to believe that a nation is capable of perfect disinterestedness in its exercise, nor become complacent about a particular degree of interest and passion which corrupt the justice by which the exercise of power is legitimatized.”

Believe Action Passion Nations Interest Justice Perfect Particular Ought Exercise Civilization Degrees Capable Preserves Complacent

Book:The Irony of American History

Source: The Irony of American History

“Vanity is so closely allied to virtue, and to love the fame of laudable actions approaches so near the love of laudable actions for their own sake, that these passions are more capable of mixture than any other kinds of affection; and it is almost impossible to have the latter without some degree of the former.”

Kind Action Passion Virtue Impossible Fame Degrees Approach Capable Sake Affection Former Vanity Latter Mixtures

Book:Essays Moral, Political, Literary: Revision of Great Book

Source: Essays Moral, Political, Literary: Revision of Great Book

“Definite gifts render their possessors capable of overcoming any obstacle this side of death; they create an impetus of far more genuine value than external advantages in some other career where the impulse to make use of them remains weak or non-existent. The work that one enjoys is the greatest source of happiness and vitality in life.”

Use Values Passion Enjoy Sides Work Careers Source Capable Advantage Weak Overcoming Remains Obstacles Genuine Impulse Definite Vitality Impetus Source Of Happiness

Book:On becoming a writer

Source: On becoming a writer

“The complaints of contemporary writes, who deplore the increase of luxury and deprevation of manners, are commonly expressive of their peculiar temper and situation. There are few observers who possess a clear and comprehensive view of the revolutions of society, and who are capable of discovering the nice and secret springs of action which impel, in the same uniform direction, the bland and capricious passions of a multitude of individuals.”

Source: The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

“Human nature itself is evermore an advocate for liberty. There is also in human nature a resentment of injury, and indignation against wrong. A love of truth and a veneration of virtue. These amiable passions, are the "latent spark" . . . If the people are capable of understanding, seeing and feeling the differences between true and false, right and wrong, virtue and vice, to what better principle can the friends of mankind apply than to the sense of this difference?”

Source: Novanglus and Massachusettensis; or, political essays, published in ... 1774 and 1775, on the principal points of controversy, between Great Britain and her colonies; the former by John Adams ... the latter by Jonathan Sewall [or rather, Daniel Leonard] ... To which are added a number of letters lately written by President Adams to the Hon. William Tudor, etc

“I believe that words uttered in passion contain a greater living truth than do those words which express thoughts rationally conceived. It is blood that moves the body. Words are not meant to stir the air only: they are capable of moving greater things.”

Believe Body Moving Passion I Believe Greater Air Blood Capable Greater Things

Book:Kokoro

Source: Kokoro

“There is no passion to be found playing small - in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living.”

“I marvel at how good I was before I met him, how I lived molded to the smallest space possible, my days the size of little beads that passed without passion through my fingers. So few people know what they're capable of. At forty-two I'd never done anything that took my own breath away, and I suppose now that was part of the problem - my chronic inability to astonish myself.”

People Knows Littles Two Done Problem Passion My Own Space Mets Capable Breaths Fingers Size Forty Smallest Inability Beads

Book:The Mermaid Chair

Source: The Mermaid Chair

“For every bourgeois, in the heat of youth, if only for a day, for a minute, has believed himself capable of immense passions, of heroic enterprises. The most mediocre libertine has dreamed of oriental princesses; every rotary carries about inside him the debris of a poet.”

Ifs Passion Minutes Youth Poet Capable Heat Enterprise Carrie Heroic Princess Immense Mediocre Bourgeois Debris Libertine Rotary

Author:Gustave Flaubert

“At that moment of love, a moment when passion is absolutely silent under omnipotence of ecstasy, Marius, pure seraphic Marius, would have been more capable of visiting a woman of the streets than of raising Cosette’s dress above the ankle. Once on a moonlit night, Cosette stopped to pick up something from the ground, her dress loosened and revealed the swelling of her breasts. Marius averted his eyes.”

Has Beens Moments Eye Night Passion Streets Pure Capable Picks Dresses Silent His Eyes Breasts That Moment Ecstasy Visiting Ankles Omnipotence Swelling Marius Moments Of Love Cosette

Book:Les Misérables

Source: Les Misérables

“The feeling of awed wonder that science can give us is one of the highest experiences of which the human psyche is capable. It is a deep aesthetic passion to rank with the finest that music and poetry can deliver. It is truly one of the things that make life worth living and it does so, if anything, more effectively if it convinces us that the time we have for living is quite finite.”

Source: Unweaving the Rainbow: Science, Delusion and the Appetite for Wonder

“We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge or gallantry would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution is designed only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for any other.”

Source: The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: With a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations

“The competitive advantages the marketplace demands is someone more human, connected, and mature. Someone with passion and energy, capable of seeing things as they are and negotiating multiple priorities as she makes useful decisions without angst. Flexible in the face of change, resilient in the face of confusion. All of these attributes are choices, not talents, and all of them are available to you.”

“I married him against all evidence. I married him believing that marriage doesn't work, that love dies, that passion fades, and in so doing I became the kind of romantic only a cynic is truly capable of being.”

Believe Kind Dies Passion Married Capable Evidence Fades Cynic

Book:Heartburn

Source: Heartburn

“Before anything else I was a woman who was capable of passion and who had a great need and a great desire for love.”

Needs Desire Passion Capable

Book:The Other Boleyn Girl (Movie Tie-In)

Source: The Other Boleyn Girl (Movie Tie-In)

“Western parents try to respect their children’s individuality, encouraging them to pursue their true passions, supporting their choices, and providing positive reinforcement and a nurturing environment. By contrast, the Chinese believe that the best way to protect their children is by preparing them for the future, letting them see what they’re capable of, and arming them with skills, work habits, and inner confidence that no one can ever take away.”

“We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Our constitution was made for a moral and religious people... it is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

“In all general questions which become the subjects of discussion, there are always some truths mixed with falsehoods. I confess, there is danger where men are capable of holding two offices. Take mankind in general, they are vicious, their passions may be operated upon. We have been taught to reprobate the danger of influence in the British government, without duly reflecting how far it was necessary to support a good government. We have taken up many ideas upon trust, and at last, pleased with our own opinions, establish them as undoubted truths.”

“There is nothing sacred about convention; there is nothing sacred about primitive passions or whims; but the fact that a convention exists indicates that a way of living has been devised capable of maintaining itself.”

Way Has Beens Facts Passion Capable Tradition Sacred Customs Conventions Primitive Maintaining Whim

Book:The Middle Span

Source: The Middle Span