"Ability" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in his History, passes a very different judgment upon these two men from that to which one would be led by the perusal of Plutarch's narratives merely. And it is an illustration, at once, of the honesty of the ancient biographer, and of the ability of the modern historian, that Mr. Grote should not infrequently derive from Plutarch's own account the means for correcting his false estimate of the motives and the actions of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various
... self-sufficiency, but just stopped short of that complacent, puerile egotism, which narrows the mind, and rears its own opinions upon a judgment-seat to pronounce verdicts upon the rest of the world. He never doubted his ability to scale any height upon which he fixed his eyes; he laughed at obstacles; he did not believe in impossibilities; what any other man could accomplish, that he had an internal conviction he might also achieve; and he held the faith of the ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... the part of Northern rebels to help Southern ones, at the most critical moment of the war,—with the State militia and available troops absent in a neighboring Commonwealth,—and the loyal people unprepared. These editors and their coadjutors, men of brains and ability, were of that most poisonous growth,—traitors to the Government and the flag of their country,—renegade Americans. Let it, however, be written plainly and graven deeply, that the tribes of savages—the hordes of ruffians—found ...
— What Answer? • Anna E. Dickinson
... you mine. As I look at it, there's a contract of honor between a newspaper and its subscribers. Tacitly the newspaper says to the subscriber, 'For two cents a day, I agree to furnish you with the news of your town, state, nation, and the outside world, selected to the best of my ability, and presented without fear or favor.' On this basis, if the newspaper fakes its news, if it distorts facts, or if it suppresses them, it is playing false with its subscribers. It is sanding its sugar, and selling shoddy ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... be imputed to Rundle for the unsatisfactory issue of the operations. He had little reason to suspect that any considerable force of the enemy was in his vicinity. He was engaged in mechanical work, the laying out of a blockhouse line. It was the immediate task before him, and to the best of his ability he used the untrustworthy and meagre instruments at hand. It would, however, have been more in accordance with military principles if he had employed his mounted troops in duties more suited to their arm, instead of holding with them the ...
— A Handbook of the Boer War • Gale and Polden, Limited
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