62 Quotes About Ability and Making a Difference

What can you do today to make life better for someone tomorrow?

Use your abilities to make a difference, be a hero, and transform a life – your own or someone else’s.

What good is having a skill, what good is having a mind, what good is having a heart if you are not using them for a greater good?

Use your abilities to make a difference, and success will come to you.

 

Quotes about Ability, Success, and Making a Difference

Ability is active power. ~ Noah Webster

Kindness trumps greed: it asks for sharing. Kindness trumps fear: it calls forth gratefulness and love. Kindness trumps even stupidity, for with sharing and love, comes learning. ~ Marc Estrin

I have learned that success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome while trying to succeed. ~ Booker T. Washington

A good head and good heart are always a formidable combination. But when you add to that a literate tongue or pen, then you have something very special. ~ Nelson Mandela

It’s easy to make a buck. It’s a lot tougher to make a difference. ~ Tom Brokaw

Native ability without education is like a tree which bears no fruit. ~ Aristippus

Ability in man is an apt good, if it be applied to good ends. ~ Diogenes

A hero is someone who has given his or her life to something bigger than oneself. ~ Joseph Campbell

A society that has more justice is a society that needs less charity. ~ Ralph Nader

Good, better, best. Never let it rest. Until your good is better and your better is best. ~ Tim Duncan

My ideas have undergone a process of emergence by emergency. When they are needed badly enough, they are accepted. ~ R. Buckminster Fuller

Happiness is a skill, emotional balance is a skill, compassion and altruism are skills, and like any skill they need to be developed. That’s what education is about. ~ Matthieu Ricard

There is no greater reward than working from your heart, and making a difference in the world. ~ Carlos Santana

I want you to understand that your first duty is to humanity. I want others to look at us and see that we care not just about ourselves but about others. ~ Madam C. J. Walker (née Sarah Breedlove)

Man’s mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions. ~ Oliver Wendell Holmes

The mind has exactly the same power as the hands: not merely to grasp the world, but to change it. ~ Colin Wilson

If you fail to prepare you are preparing to fail. ~ Anonymous

Be thankful for everything that happens in your life; it’s all an experience. ~ Roy T. Bennett

We deal with our mind from morning till evening, and it can be our best friend or our worst enemy. ~ Matthieu Ricard

One important key to success is self-confidence. An important key to self-confidence is preparation. ~ Arthur Ashe

It is failure that gives you the proper perspective on success. ~ Ellen DeGeneres

To become an able man in any profession, there are three things necessary – nature, study, and practice. ~ Aristotle

Give me power but for a single day, and it is mine forever. ~ Semiramis

He who knows when he can fight and when he cannot will be victorious. ~ Sun Tzu

If thou art a man, admire those who attempt great enterprises, even though they fail. ~ Lucius Annaeus Seneca

More concretely: no transformation without our feet on the ground. Stewardship means, for most of us, find your place on the planet, dig in, and take responsibility from there... ~ Gary Snyder

Talent is never enough. With few exceptions the best players are the hardest workers. ~ Earvin “Magic” Johnson

We rate ability in men by what they finish, not by what they attempt. ~ Norman Macdonald

You are always nearer the divine and the true sources of your power than you think. The lure of the distant and the difficult is deceptive. ~ John Burroughs

The great opportunity is where you are. Do not despise your own place and hour. Every place is under the stars, every place is the center of the world. ~ John Burroughs

Cultivate the habit of being grateful for every good thing that comes to you, and to give thanks continuously. And because all things have contributed to your advancement, you should include all things in your gratitude. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Desperation is a necessary ingredient to learning anything, or creating anything. Period. ~ Jim Carrey

The more able a man is, if he make ill use of his abilities, the more dangerous will he be to the Commonwealth. ~ Demosthenes

We have more power than will; and it is often by way of excuse to ourselves that we fancy things are impossible. ~ François de La Rochefoucauld

A man without abilities rarely has enemies. ~ Edward Parsons Day

Diligence and perseverance are the composites of the philosopher’s stone…their application has transformed the poorest material into the purest gold. ~ William Talbot Burke

When you become the image of your own imagination, it’s the most powerful thing you could ever do. ~ RuPaul

One thing that humbles me deeply is to see that human genius has its limits, while human stupidity does not. ~ Alexandre Dumas

Real difficulties can be overcome; it is only the imaginary ones that are unconquerable. ~ Theodore N. Vail

Change can be hard. It requires no extra effort to settle for the same old thing. ~ John Mark Green

A problem is only a problem when viewed as a problem. All change is hard at first, messy in the middle and gorgeous at the end. ~ Robin Sharma

Compassionate listening is the greatest and simplest form of peacekeeping. ~ Cleo Wade

You can't have a physical transformation until you have a spiritual transformation. ~ Cory Booker

Many things imperfect by nature are made perfect by wisdom. ~ Niccolò da Uzzano

Fools learn nothing from wise men, but wise men learn much from fools. ~ Johann Caspar Lavater

Finite minds cannot comprehend infinity. ~ Jeremiah Seed

People who love do the impossible all the time. ~ Germaine Shames

Charity is injurious unless it helps the recipient to become independent of it. ~ John D. Rockefeller

Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly. ~ Langston Hughes

Hold fast to dreams, for when dreams go, life is a barren field frozen with snow. ~ Langston Hughes

The real measure of your wealth is how much you’d be worth if you lost all your money. ~ Bernard Meltzer

For it is often easier to fight for principles than to live up to them. ~ Adlai Stevenson II

People are like music. Some speak the truth, and others are just noise. ~ Bill Murray

I used to want the words 'She tried' on my tombstone. Now I want 'She did it.' ~ Katherine Dunha

The abilities of man have not been exhausted; nothing has been done by him that cannot be better done. ~ William Edmondstoune Aytoun

There is no effort of science or art that may not be exceeded, no depth of philosophy that cannot be deeper sounded, no flight of imagination that may not be passed by strong and soaring wing. ~ William Edmondstoune Aytoun

Natural ability without education has oftener raised man to glory and virtue, than education without natural ability. ~ Marcus Tullius Cicero

Power in itself is an abstraction; we can never see it, we cannot hear it, we cannot feel it, we cannot taste it, we cannot smell it; we witness its results everywhere. ~ John Hughes

It is not genius so much as ability that carries one through the battles of life. ~ Alfred Billings Street

Change will not come if we wait for some other person or if we wait for some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek. ~ Barack Obama

You change the world, but the world changes you, too. There’s no getting around it. I have to survive here, no matter what it costs me. ~ Lina J. Potter

Don't chase success. Decide to make a difference and success will find you. ~ Jon Gordon

 

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