Natural abilities are like natural plants; they need pruning by study.

Natural abilities can almost compensate for the want of every kind of cultivation, but no cultivation of the mind can make up for the want of natural abilities.

To know how to hide one's ability is great skill.

All endeavor calls for the ability to tramp the last mile, shape the last plan, endure the last hours toil. The fight to the finish spirit is the one...characteristic we must posses if we are to face the future as finishers.

The Creator has not given you a longing to do that which you have no ability to do.

Ability without honor is useless.

The question ''Who ought to be boss?'' is like as ''Who ought to be the tenor in the quartet?'' Obviously, the man who can sing tenor.

People are so constituted that everybody would rather undertake what they see others do, whether they have an aptitude for it or not.

The height of ability consists in a thorough knowledge of the real value of things, and of the genius of the age in which we live.

I add this, that rational ability without education has oftener raised man to glory and virtue, than education without natural ability.