Famous quotes containing the word capacity:
“What, then, is the basic difference between todays computer and an intelligent being? It is that the computer can be made to see but not to perceive. What matters here is not that the computer is without consciousness but that thus far it is incapable of the spontaneous grasp of patterna capacity essential to perception and intelligence.”
—Rudolf Arnheim (b. 1904)
“The first half of it consists of the capacity to enjoy without the chance; the last half consists of the chance without the capacity.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (18351910)
“Mankinds common instinct for reality ... has always held the world to be essentially a theatre for heroism. In heroism, we feel, lifes supreme mystery is hidden. We tolerate no one who has no capacity whatever for it in any direction. On the other hand, no matter what a mans frailties otherwise may be, if he be willing to risk death, and still more if he suffer it heroically, in the service he has chosen, the fact consecrates him forever.”
—William James (18421910)