223 Potential Quotes

According to Buddhism, individuals are masters of their own destiny. And all living beings are believed to possess the nature of the Primordial Buddha Samantabhadra, the potential or seed of enlightenment, within them. So our future is in our own hands. What greater free will do we need?

If you plan on being anything less than you are capable of being, you will probably be unhappy all the days of your life.

That in the soul which is called the mind is, before it thinks, not actually any real thing.

Ever since I was a child I have had this instinctive urge for expansion and growth. To me, the function and duty of a quality human being is the sincere and honest development of one's potential.

If you always put limit on everything you do, physical or anything else. It will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them.

Genius is present in every age, but the men carrying it within them remain benumbed unless extraordinary events occur to heat up and melt the mass so that it flows forth.

The general interest of the masses might take the place of the insight of genius if it were allowed freedom of action.

The hardest thing is to go to sleep at night, when there are so many urgent things needing to be done. A huge gap exists between what we know is possible with today's machines and what we have so far been able to finish.

Any human anywhere will blossom in a hundred unexpected talents and capacities simply by being given the opportunity to do so.

The most gifted members of the human species are at their creative best when they cannot have their way, and must compensate for what they miss by realizing and cultivating their capacities and talents.

Man's main task in life is to give birth to himself, to become what he potentially is. The most important product of his effort is his own personality.

I never met anyone who didn't have a very smart child. What happens to these children, you wonder, when they reach adulthood?

For I think it is the case with genius that it is not when quiescent so very much above mediocrity as the difference between the two might lead us to think, but that it has the power and privilege of rising from that level to a height utterly far from mediocrity: in other words that its greatness is that it can be so great.

I dream of a time when the people will retake their airways and use them to achieve a voice to rediscover democracy, and to see the divine potential of man.

The infinity of All ever bringing forth anew, and even as infinite space is around us, so is infinite potentiality, capacity, reception, malleability, matter.

If men cease to believe that they will one day become gods then they will surely become worms.

Every man is a potential genius until he does something.

There is great treasure there behind our skull and this is true about all of us. This little treasure has great, great powers, and I would say we only have learnt a very, very small part of what it can do.

I saw that my life was a vast glowing empty page and I could do anything I wanted.

Anybody can do anything, it's up to themselves. All it takes is the right intentions.

The task of leadership is not to put greatness into humanity, but to elicit it, for the greatness is already there.

The thing the sixties did was to show us the possibilities and the responsibility that we all had. It wasn't the answer. It just gave us a glimpse of the possibility.

I love the whirling of the dervishes. I love the beauty of rare innocence. You don't need no crystal ball, Don't fall for a magic wand. We humans got it all, we perform the miracles.

Nothing is unthinkable, nothing impossible to the balanced person, provided it comes out of the needs of life and is dedicated to life's further development.

The possible ranks higher than the actual.

I am capable of what every other human is capable of. This is one of the great lessons of war and life.

I'm the best. I just haven't played yet.

If they can make penicillin out of mouldy bread, they can sure make something out of you.

The man who has no imagination has no wings.

It is our will That thus enchains us to permitted ill. We might be otherwise, we might be all We dream of happy, high, majestical. Where is the love, beauty and truth we seek, But in our mind? and if we were not weak, Should we be less in deed than in desire?

Though thou loved her as thyself, As a self of purer clay, Tho' her parting dims the day, Stealing grace from all alive, Heartily know, When half-gods go, The gods arrive.

Somehow, you need to cling to your optimism. Always look for the silver lining. Always look for the best in people. Try to see things through the eyes of a child. See the wonder in the simplest things. Never stop dreaming. Believe anything is possible.

To understand the heart and mind of a person, look not at what he has already achieved, but what he aspires to.

The wise man looks into space and does not regard the small as too little, not the great as too big, for he knows that, there is no limit to dimensions.

We are all born with God-given, unique traits and skills. But, as with all possibilities they will remain unrealized unless they are developed, nurtured, and put into practice. You may have the 'capacity' to love, but if left undeveloped, you will never gain the 'ability.'

We are all born with God-given, unique traits and skills. But as with all possibilities they will remain unrealized unless they are developed, nurtured and put into practice.

In American literature she will remain a remarkable biographic phenomenon, while the tragic death of this Lycidas of women, a most painful personal story of shipwreck, was intensified by so many melancholy incidents that whoever, long years hence, may read them, will wonder how the gods could have been so pitiless, and why the life of new happiness and larger intellectual achievement which was before her should so suddenly have ended upon that savage and inhospitable shore.

Among the three or four million cradles now rocking in the land are some which this nation would preserve for ages as sacred things, if we could know which ones they are.

I think you were always pretending. Maybe you even fooled yourself. But one thing is certain. You were never an ordinary girl, and you could never had lead an ordinary life.

Maybe he's growing up Or maybe he just needed the right circumstances to discover the best in himself.

Is that why you hate him so...? Because he knows the woman as she might have been?

All that Shakespeare says of the king, yonder slip of a boy that reads in the corner feels to be true of himself.

So nigh is grandeur to our dust, So near is God to man, When Duty whispers low, Thou must, The youth replies, I can.

Our brave young men are dying in the swamps of Southeast Asia. Which of them might have written a poem? Which of them might have cured cancer? Which of them might have played in a World Series or given us the gift of laughter from the stage or helped build a bridge or a university? Which of them would have taught a child to read? It is our responsibility to let these men live....It is indecent if they die because of the empty vanity of their country. (Vietnam War speech, Calif, 3-24-68)

If you want to learn, then you can do anything.

I am convinced, as a member of this structure, that Armenia's government, Armenia's people, Armenia's living conditions, all need great improvement. Our potential has not been completely used.

Wes Clark has been a superb battalion commander and will be a superb brigade commander. He is an officer of the rarest potential and will clearly rise to senior general officer rank. He will be one of the Army's leaders in the 1990's.

We shouldn't rely solely on standardized tests because they don't really capture true potential.

There is a small proportion betwixt a fool who useth not wit because he hath it not and him that useth it not when it should avail him.

Dicko: Oh my God, you can dance can't you. Hey look, fantastic song for you. You look wonderful. If you can't do bling on a disco night when can you? That was just a real eye opener for me. That was just a real, real joyous experience for me. What we've noticed, and certainly at the finals stage is there is the performance that defines someone and shows their true star potential. For me that was yours. That was terrific.

Dicko: Can I say that you look absolutely fabulous tonight? I thought that was going to be a great song for you, but I can still hear you thinking. You're worth a lot more than you realise, you have to learn to feel more. I think that your greatest barrier is yourself...

'I am but as others: I am but what I was born to be.' 'Do you recognize what you were born to be? Not only a nobleman, but a gentleman; not only a gentleman, but a man - man, made in the image of God. How can you, how dare you, give the lie to your Creator?' 'What has He given me? What have I to thank Him for?' 'First, manhood; the manhood His Son disdained not to wear; worldly gifts, such as rank, riches, influence, things which others have to spend half an existence in earning; life in its best prime, with much of youth yet remaining - with grief endured, wisdom learnt, experience won. Would to Heaven, that by any poor word of mine I could make you feel all that you are - all that you might be!' A gleam, bright as a boy's hope, wild as a boy's daring, flashed from those listless eyes - then faded. 'You mean, Mr. Halifax, what I might have been. Now it is too late.' 'There is no such word as 'too late,' in the wide world - nay, not in the universe. What! shall we, whose atom of time is but a fragment out of an ever-present eternity - shall we, so long as we live, or even at our life's ending, dare to cry out to the Eternal One, 'It is too late!''

So many other things for us to see/Things to be, our history so full of tragedy and misery

One day she would be a formidable female, a creature to be reckoned with

The main point of Flying Down to Rio is the screen promise of Fred Astaire.... He's assuredly a bet after this one, for he's distinctly likeable on the screen, the mike is kind to his voice and as a dancer he remains in a class by himself. The latter observation will be no news to the professsion, which has long admitted that Astaire starts dancing where the others stop hoofing

'The future of chess lies in the hands of this young man' ~ Mikhail Botvinnik

you'll know it's true, that you are blessed and lucky it's true, that you are touched by something that will grow and bloom in you

How suddenly we find the flesh of god within us after all, when we thought we were only made of dust

Clever boys. They'll do it, if we give them half a chance. They will do it

Make the decision that you can be who you can be You can be Tasting the fruit come to the Liberty Tree

We under I wonder what it takes to make this/one better place, let's erase the wasted

If he does that, he will be the greatest man in the world.

Be fit for more than the thing you are now doing. Let everyone know that you have a reserve in yourself; that you have more power than you are now using. If you are not too large for the place you occupy, you are too small for it.

God endowed [the human race] with capacity to attain to the inaccessible and invisible Supreme Good and behold it face to face.

Ain't no man can avoid being born average, but there ain't no man got to be common.

According to Buddhism, individuals are masters of their own destiny. And all living beings are believed to possess the nature of the Primordial Buddha Samantabhadra, the potential or seed of enlightenment, within them. So our future is in our own hands. What greater free will do we need?

Our brave young men are dying in the swamps of Southeast Asia. Which of them might have written a poem? Which of them might have cured cancer? Which of them might have played in a World Series or given us the gift of laughter from the stage or helped build a bridge or a university? Which of them would have taught a child to read? It is our responsibility to let these men live....It is indecent if they die because of the empty vanity of their country. (Vietnam War speech, Calif, 3-24-68)

Your best side? My dear, you're sitting on it.

Youth, n. The Period of Possibility, when Archimedes finds a fulcrum, Cassandra has a following and seven cities compete for the honor of endowing a living Homer.

There are admirable potentialities in every human being. Believe in your strength and your youth. Learn to repeat endlessly to yourself, 'It all depends on me'.

Everyone has inside of him a piece of good news. The good news is that you don't know how great you can be! How much you can love! What you can accomplish! And what your potential is!

All men are intellectuals: but not all men have in society the function of intellectuals.

'My potential is more than can be expressed within the bounds of my race or ethnic identity.'

'My humanity, in common with all of God's children, gives the greatest flight to my full range of my possibilities.'

'The evolution of the brain not only overshot the needs of prehistoric man, it is the only example of evolution providing a species with an organ which it does not know how to use' (The Ghost in the Machine)

Genius, when young, is divine.

I do know that technologically humanity now has the opportunity, for the first time in its history, to operate our planet in such a manner as to support and accommodate all humanity at a substantially more advanced standard of living than any humans have ever experienced.

There are lots of things a warrior can do at a certain time which he couldn't do years before. Those things themselves did not change; what changed was his idea of himself.

We're all a little broken. We're all a little twisted. We're all less than we could be or want to be.

'And I cant believe that we would lie in our graves dreaming of things that we might have been'

Dear Mary, We all knew you had it in you!

You still don't know what you do well.

You need at this time especially to know that you are fit for something better than slavery and cannon fodder. You need to know that you were not created to work and produce and impoverish yourself to enrich an idle exploiter. You need to know that you have a mind to improve, a soul to develop, and a manhood to sustain.

Presque tous les hommes ressemblent a ces grands palais deserts dont le proprietaire n'habite que quelques pieces; et il ne penetre jamais danss les ailes condamnees.

We are, all of us, growing volcanoes that approach the hour of their eruption; but how near or distant that is, nobody knows - not even God.

A human being is not attaining his full heights until he is educated.

The test of leadership is not to put greatness into humanity, but to elicit it, for the greatness is already there.

If I accept you as you are, I will make you worse; however if I treat you as though you are what you are capable of becoming, I help you become that.

We knew and were certainly respectful of each other. There was always the sort of promise, 'Hey, we'll get together and do something sometime.' I liked him. I liked his work ethic, and I liked his choices. He was a sharp guy. He had so many amazing possibilities before him. Fuck, what a waste. For what? (2004)

He who could have been a torch and stoops to being a pair of jaws is a deserter.

Every human being has within him an ideal man, just as every piece of marble contains in a rough state a statue as beautiful as the one that Praxiteles the Greek made of the god Apollo.

It was a world which granted privileges to some and imposed prohibitions on others...Endowed with strength and eager to learn, one had to drag himself in a narrow prison cell when he could see an open field, a vast horizon in the distance; when he could feel the beatings of a heart; and when he believed himself entitled to enjoy the beauty of a dream.