Famous quotes containing the word ability:
“Our decision about energy will test the character of the American people and the ability of the President and the Congress to govern this nation. This difficult effort will be the “moral equivalent of war,” except that we will be uniting our efforts to build and not to destroy.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)
“As parents it is well to be aware of the tendency to equate energetic activity with contest. Our children’s worth does not depend on their ability to trounce one another. And surely we can find ways of frolicking and being healthy and active together in some joyful, free way that is not an adversary relationship.”
—Polly Berrien Berends (20th century)
“The chief element in the art of statesmanship under modern conditions is the ability to elucidate the confused and clamorous interests which converge upon the seat of government. It is an ability to penetrate from the naïve self-interest of each group to its permanent and real interest.... Statesmanship ... consists in giving the people not what they want but what they will learn to want.”
—Walter Lippmann (1889–1974)