#capable

Concepts, like individuals, have their histories and are just as incapable of withstanding the ravages of time as are individuals. But in and through all this they retain a kind of homesickness for the scenes of their childhood. ↗

— Soren Kierkegaard

#concepts #histories #homesickness #incapable #individuals

In the fields I know best, among the life sciences, it is required that the most expert and sophisticated minds be capable of changing course - often with a great lurch - every few years. ↗

— Lewis Thomas

#best #capable #changing #course #every

I suppose if I'd got a brilliant first and done research I might still be a don today, but I hope not. People become dons because they are incapable of doing anything else in life. ↗

— A. N. Wilson

#because #become #brilliant #doing #done

The human mind is capable of excitement without the application of gross and violent stimulants; and he must have a very faint perception of its beauty and dignity who does not know this. ↗

— William Wordsworth

#beauty #capable #dignity #does #excitement

One reason I'm such a wayward prognosticator of rightwing trends is that I'm incapable of blacking out enough neural sectors to see the world through reptilian-brained eyes, a prerequisite for any true channeling of the mean resentments and implanted fears that drive hardcore conservatives. ↗

— James Wolcott

#channeling #conservatives #drive #enough #eyes

She gave a little sob deep in her throat. 'Call it a prophecy, call it a prediction, call it fate - call it what you will. I fought against it hard enough, God knows. But the evidence of my own eyes, my own ears, my own senses, is too much for me. And the time's too short now. I'm afraid to take a chance. I haven't got the nerve to bluff it out, to sit pat. You don't gamble with a human life. Today's the 13th, isn't it? It's too close to the 14th; there isn't time-margin enough left now to be skeptical, to keep it to myself any longer. Day by day I've watched him cross off the date on his desk-calendar, drawing nearer to death. There are only two leaves left now, and I want help! Because on the 14th - at the exact stroke of midnight, as the 15th is beginning -' She covered her face with both arms and shook silently. 'Yes?' urged McManus. 'Yes?' 'He's become convinced - oh, and almost I have too - that at exactly midnight on the 14th he's to die. Not just die but meet his death in full vigor and health, a death rushing down to him from the stars he was born under - rushing down even before he existed at all. A death inexorable, inescapable. A death horrid and violent, inconceivable here in this part of the world where we live.' She took a deep, shuddering breath, whispered the rest of it. 'Death at the jaws of a lion.' ("Speak To Me Of Death") ↗

— Cornell Woolrich

#death #fate-destiny #inescapable #prediction #prophecy

One of the things that I've been doing recently in my scientific research is to ask this question: Is the universe actually capable of performing things like digital computations? ↗

— Seth Lloyd

#ask #been #capable #computations #digital

We proved that we are still a people capable of doing big things and tackling our biggest challenges. ↗

— Barack Obama

#big things #biggest #biggest challenges #capable #challenges

The rockets... can be built so powerfully that they could be capable of carrying a man aloft. ↗

— Hermann Oberth

#capable #carrying #could #man #powerfully

I know that human beings are capable of anything. ↗

— Ben Okri

#beings #capable #human #human beings #i