About Ability

The less their ability, the more their conceit.
Ahad HaAm
Great ability develops and reveals itself increasingly with every new assignment.
Baltasar Gracian
Natural ability without education has more often attained to glory and virtue than education without natural ability.
Cicero (106 BC - 43 BC)
It is a great ability to be able to conceal one's ability.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld (1613 - 1680), Maxims, 1665
Martyrdom... is the only way in which a man can become famous without ability.
George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950), The Devil's Disciple (1901) act 3
I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestioned ability of a man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor.
Henry David Thoreau (1817 - 1862)
Ability will never catch up with the demand for it.
Malcolm Forbes (1919 - 1990)
Dressing up is inevitably a substitute for good ideas. It is no coincidence that technically inept business types are known as "suits."
Paul Graham, September 2004
Nerds don't just happen to dress informally. They do it too consistently. Consciously or not, they dress informally as a prophylactic measure against stupidity.
Paul Graham, September 2004
Perhaps the most valuable result of all education is the ability to make yourself do the thing you have to do, when it ought to be done, whether you like it or not; it is the first lesson that ought to be learned; and however early a man's training begins, it is probably the last lesson that he learns thoroughly.
Thomas H. Huxley (1825 - 1895)
The Army has carried the American ... ideal to its logical conclusion. Not only do they prohibit discrimination on the grounds of race, creed and color, but also on ability.
Tom Lehrer (1928 - )