Quotes About Potential

Never try to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and it annoys the pig.

— Paul Dickson

I consider a human soul without education like marble in a quarry, which shows none of its inherent beauties until the skill of the polisher sketches out the colors, makes the surface shine, and discovers every ornamental cloud, spot, and vein that runs through it.

— Joseph Addison

In proportion to the development of his individuality, each person becomes more valuable to himself, and is therefore capable of being more valuable to others.

— John Stuart Mill

I am not a perfect servant.  I am a public servant doing my best against the odds.  As I develop and serve, be patient.  God is not finished with me yet.

— Jesse Jackson

Nine tenths of modern science is in this respect the same: it is the produce of men whom their comtemporaries thought dreamers — who were laughed at for caring for what did not concern them — who, as the proverb went, “walked into a well from looking at the stars” — who were believed to be useless, if anyone could be such.

— Walter Bagehot

The nobler a man, the harder it is for him to suspect inferiority in others.

— Cicero

And what is a weed?  A plant whose virtues have not been discovered.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Education is helping the child realize his potentialities.

— Erich Fromm

The essence of our effort to see that every child has a chance must be to assure each an equal opportunity, not to become equal, but to become different — to realize whatever unique potential of body, mind, and spirit he or she possesses.

— John Fischer

The greatest value in the world is the difference between what we are and what we could become.

— Ben Herbster

Every man believes that he has a greater possibility.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

All of us do not have equal talent, but all of us should have an equal opportunity to develop our talent.

— John F. Kennedy

Everything that enlarges the sphere of human powers, that shows man he can do what he thought he could not do, is valuable.

— Samuel Johnson

The biggest temptation is...to settle for too little.

— Thomas Merton

Nature is often hidden, sometimes overcome, seldom extinguished.

— Francis Bacon

There’s always room for improvement, you know — it’s the biggest room in the house.

— Louise Heath Leber, on being chosen Mother of the Year

Man needs, for his happiness, not only the enjoyment of this or that, but hope and enterprise and change.

— Bertrand Russell

Loving a child doesn’t mean giving in to all his whims; to love him is to bring out the best in him, to teach him to love what is difficult.

— Nadia Boulanger

I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty to accomplish small tasks as if they were great and noble.

— Helen Keller

There is no meaning to life except the meaning man gives his life by the unfolding of his powers, by living productively.

— Erich Fromm

Kind words will never die — neither will they buy groceries.

— Bill Nye

Most novices picture themselves as masters — and are content with the picture.  This is why there are so few masters.

— Jean Toomer

People mistake their limitations for high standards.

— Jean Toomer

When we grow old, there can only be one regret — not to have given enough of ourselves.

— Eleonora Duse