Quotes About Capacity

The miracle that saves the world, the realm of human affairs, from its normal, 'natural' ruin is ultimately the fact of natality, in which the faculty of action is ontologically rooted. It is, in other words, the birth of new [people] and the new beginning, the action they are capable of by virtue of being born. Only the full experience of this capacity can bestow upon human affairs faith and hope.

Power was thought to be synonymous with economic capacity before people discovered that economic and industrial capacity are only its modern prerequisites. In a sense, economic power could bring governments to heel because they had the same faith in economics as the plain businessmen who had somehow convinced them that the state's means of violence had to be used exclusively for protection of business interests and national property.

The fact is that the human capacity for life in the world always implies an ability to transcend and to be alienated from the processes of life itself, while vitality and liveliness can be conserved only to the extent that men are willing to take the burden, the toil and trouble of life, upon themselves.

Beginning, before it becomes a historical event, is the supreme capacity of man; politically, it is identified with man's freedom. 'That a beginning be made man was created' said Augustine. This beginning is guaranteed by each new birth; it is indeed every man.

every thought that deviates from the officially prescribed and permanently changing line is already suspect, no matter in which field of human activity it occurs. Simply because of their capacity to think, human beings are suspects by definition, and this suspicion cannot be diverted by exemplary behavior, for the human capacity to think is also a capacity to change one's mind.

The danger of exchanging the necessary insecurity of philosophical thought for the total explanation of an ideology and its [worldview], is not even so much the risk of falling for some usually vulgar, always uncritical assumption as of exchanging the freedom inherent in man's capacity to think for the straight-jacket of logic with which man can force himself almost as violently as he is forced by some outside power.

Out of the slaughter of some 20,000 Communards, out of military defeat and economic collapse, what had in fact emerged was a regime whose capacity for government had been doubtful from its inception. So much, indeed, was this the case that within three years a society brought to the brink of ruin was clamoring for a dictator.

Each society demands of its members a certain amount of acting, the ability to present, represent, and act what one actually is. When society disintegrates into cliques such demands are no longer made of the individual but of members of cliques. Behavior then is controlled by silent demands and not by individual capacities, exactly as an actor's performance must fit into the ensemble of all other roles in the play.

In other words, the deliberate denial of factual truth—the ability to lie—and the capacity to change facts—the ability to act—are interconnected; they owe their existence to the same source: imagination.

On politics] And a people that can no longer believe anything cannot make up its mind. It is deprived not only of its capacity to act but also of its capacity to think and to judge. And with such a people you can then do what you please.

You know that I do love you, Shepard, as much as my cold little heart is capable.

We've put huge resources into predicting tsunamis, hurricanes, and earthquakes. HIV/AIDS is like an earthquake that's lasted 30 years and touched every country on the planet. We have such incredible capacity to think about the future, it's time we used it to predict biological threats. Otherwise we'll be blindsided again and again.

At its heart, 'South Park' has a touching faith in human beings: that despite their absurdities and flaws, people have the capacity to create a better world.

I cultivated this fan base that I really didn't really understand or appreciate until I put my first headlining tour up for sale. 500- to 1,000-capacity rooms weren't an underplay for me at the time. I'd never done a tour before!

Madonna would not have done a 360 deal with us just because of our touring capability. We had to prove to her and others that we have been working on and built a very good execution capacity at Artist Nation.

I wanted to just come out and continue to improve my game, continue to improve my mental capacity to play well in tournaments. I've had a slow year compared to last year, but I've been pleased because I felt like I was getting better.

In order to counteract income inequality, it's essential to tackle poverty in an integrated way that has long-term impact. We need to give people the capacity to be resilient, to take on challenges and to learn the skills they need to work toward more prosperous futures.

It is because nations tend towards stupidity and baseness that mankind moves so slowly; it is because individuals have a capacity for better things that it moves at all.

Scientists attach great importance to the human capacity for spoken language. But we also have a parallel track of nonverbal communication, which may reveal more than our carefully chosen words, and sometimes be at odds with them.

Research points to the fact that being born without trauma is the foundation for having an intact capacity to love and trust.

An atmosphere of trust, love, and humor can nourish extraordinary human capacity. One key is authenticity: parents acting as people, not as roles.

Love is based on our capacity to trust in a reality beyond fear, to trust a timeless truth bigger than all our difficulties.

The truth is, you cannot love yourself unless you have been loved and are loved. The capacity to love cannot be built in isolation.

I knew books to be objects that loved to cluster and form disordered piles, but here books seemed robbed of their zany capacity to fall about, to conspire. In the library, books behaved themselves.