"Natural ability" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to quote: "At the age of thirteen he joined The Colorado (Texas) Cornet Band as a charter member. The youngest member of the band, he soon outstripped his comrades by virtue of his superior natural ability. His position was that of second tenor. Wearying of the monotony of playing, he determined to venture on solo work. The boy felt the impetus of restless power and the following incident illustrates his remarkable originality. Taking the piano score of a favourite melody he ...
— The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten
... with all its traditional characteristics. But in lieu of conferring full powers on the Governor of the conquered province, a man of broad views and conciliatory methods, the Government dispatched a narrow-minded official, devoid of natural ability, of administrative training, and of the sobering consciousness of his own defects, and listened to his recommendations. For Russia, like France and Britain, still contemplated the situation and its potentialities through the distorting ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon
... 'By natural ability, I mean those qualities of intellect and disposition, which urge and qualify a man to perform acts which lead to reputation. I do not mean capacity without zeal, nor zeal without capacity, nor even a ...
— Popular Science Monthly Volume 86
... will, "free to evil only." Is it vouchsafed to him from above? Is it a gift from God? Alas! to those who are lost, and perish eternally in their sins, the grace of God is never given! What does it signify thus to tell them, or to tell the world, that they have the natural ability to obey; that none of their natural faculties are lost; that they still have understandings, and affections, and wills? What can all these avail them? Is it not the merest mockery to assure them that they really ...
— A Theodicy, or, Vindication of the Divine Glory • Albert Taylor Bledsoe
... indeed a different way of dealing with different kinds of people. (4) Those who thought they had good natural ability and despised learning he instructed that the most highly-gifted nature stands most in need of training and education; (5) and he would point out how in the case of horses it is just the spirited and fiery thoroughbred which, if properly broken in as a colt, will develop into a serviceable and superb ...
— The Memorabilia - Recollections of Socrates • Xenophon
... examination, as to induce one of the gentlemen who assisted him to consider him entitled to one of the classical prizes; but the doctor added that Frank Digby's indifference and idleness during the term had made him so unwilling that he should, by mere force of natural ability, deprive his more industrious class-fellows of a hard-earned honor, that he had not felt himself justified in listening to the recommendation, but hoped that his talents would, the following term, be exerted from the beginning, in which case, he should ...
— Louis' School Days - A Story for Boys • E. J. May
... A certain amount of natural ability is requisite to make you a good physician, but by no means that disproportionate development of some special faculty which goes by the name of genius. A just balance of the mental powers is a great deal more likely ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... once been a man of note in the State—a man of extraordinary natural ability and as extraordinary learning. He had been universally trusted and honored in his day, but had finally, fallen into misfortune; while serving his third term in Congress, and while upon the point of being elevated to the Senate—which was considered ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... sitting there, was reminded of his first night at the Rectangle in the tent when Rachel sang the people into quiet. The effect was the same here. What wonderful power a good voice consecrated to the Master's service always is! Rachel's great natural ability would have made her one of the foremost opera singers of the age. Surely this audience had never heard such a melody. How could it? The men who had drifted in from the street sat entranced by a voice which "back in the world," as the Bishop said, never could be heard by the common people because ...
— In His Steps • Charles M. Sheldon
... capable and helpful side to her character. She generally retains in affairs her gentleness, considerateness, and patience in dealing with all sorts of people. No quality is more important in business than a natural ability to understand and sympathize. A woman's ideas may be original and her knowledge of business details exact, but it is her power to work with others and to make the best of them which is the highest part of her business ability. ...
— The Canadian Girl at Work - A Book of Vocational Guidance • Marjory MacMurchy
... that, Mac, it ain't that. Nobody's doubtin' your natural ability to mop him up. But it ain't policy. You wasn't sore agin them cannibal savages, was you? You made Neils go back an' save 'em, an' it took us two days to beat up to the first inhabited island an' drop ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... Social and Political Union, in order to help in solving this problem, has in view the adoption of a number of "war babies," who will be reared under model conditions, and provided with a good general education followed by a training adapted to the natural ability and special gifts of ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... used to call Your Father 'Major;' of course he was only a private in The War but everybody knew that was because of the jealousy of his captain and he ought to have been a high-ranking officer, he had that natural ability to command that so very, very few men have—and this man came out into the road and held up his hand and stopped the buggy and said, 'Major,' he said, 'there's a lot of the folks around here that have ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... to show that he too held that God had entrusted the care of the nations outside Judaea to other substituted powers. (110) No one in the whole of the Old Testament speaks more rationally of God than Solomon, who in fact surpassed all the men of his time in natural ability. (111) Yet he considered himself above the law (esteeming it only to have been given for men without reasonable and intellectual grounds for their actions), and made small account of the laws concerning kings, which are mainly three: nay, he openly violated them ...
— A Theologico-Political Treatise [Part I] • Benedict de Spinoza
... journey. But in this land are hundreds of children, our own blood and kin, who must face their crushing problems often with bodies stunted from insufficient nourishment in childhood, and minds unopened and undeveloped, not through lack of natural ability, but because opportunity has never come to them. As one looks ahead one sees clearly what a contribution these eager children could offer their "day" if only their cousins at home had "the eyes of their understanding purged to ...
— Le Petit Nord - or, Annals of a Labrador Harbour • Anne Elizabeth Caldwell (MacClanahan) Grenfell and Katie Spalding
... matters for nearly an hour; and my impression of this young man's natural ability was confirmed and heightened. But it was an ability as wrong and perverse in its directions or instincts as a French novelist's. He seemed to have, to a high degree, the harder portion of the reasoning faculty, but to ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... what we are wont to say about the arts and sciences is also true of moral excellence, for to its perfect development three things must meet together, natural ability, theory, and practice. By theory I mean training, and by practice working at one's craft. Now the foundation must be laid in training, and practice gives facility, but perfection is attained only by the junction of all three. For if any one of these elements be wanting, excellence ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... a man of great natural ability. If you ask me, How pious is he? I treat it as a conundrum, and give it up. Personally he treated me with marked kindness throughout my ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 4 • Charles Farrar Browne
... "In France we could live without the hateful prejudices that prevail in America. I have natural ability enough, you have told me so a thousand times, and I could make myself worthy ...
— A Black Adonis • Linn Boyd Porter
... somewhat greater care, I added considerable matter, so that the book might be of fair size, and in fact might appear worthy even of the honour of being dedicated to John Erasmius, son of Froben, a boy then six years old, but of extraordinary natural ability. This was done in the year 1522. But the nature of this work is such, that it receives addition as often as it is revised. Accordingly I frequently made an addition for the sake of the studious, and of John Froben; but so tempered the subject-matters, that besides the pleasure of reading, and ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus |
