Dexterity Quotes
More Dexterity Quotes
Your dexterity seems a happy compound of the smartness of an attorney's clerk and the intrigue of a Greek of the lower empire.
— Benjamin Disraeli, in Ashley Montagu The Anatomy of Swearing, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1967,p.98
Stay thou there in thy place. Saying these words, he leaped with great dexterity into the sea (if I may so call it) of Flatland, right in the midst of the ring of Counsellors. “I come,” said he, “to proclaim that there is a land of Three Dimensions.”
— Edwin Abbott Abbott, et al, in Flatland: The Movie Edition, Princeton University Press, 01-Mar-2009, p.72
When she goes about her kitchen duties, chopping, carving, mixing, whisking, she moves with the grace and precision of a ballet dancer, her fingers plying the food with the dexterity of a croupier.
— Craig Claiborne, in Susan L. Rattiner Food and Drink: A Book of Quotations, Courier Dover Publications, 19 September 2012
Look at that hand of mine Many and many a job that hand has done, with a neatness and dexterity never known afore. When I look at that hand, said Mr. Dennis, shaking it in the air .
— Barnaby Rudge, in Museum of Foreign Literature, Science and Art, Volume 43, E. Littell, 1841, p.134
The greatest improvement in the productive powers of labour, and the greater part of the skill, dexterity and judgement with which it is any where directed, as applied, seem to have been the effects of the division of labour.
Adam Smith— 1776 An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of theWealth of Nations, bk.1, ch.1.
One needs only to study a certain positioning of the hand in relation to the keys to obtain with ease the most beautiful sounds, to know how to play long notes and short notes and to [attain] certain unlimited dexterity... A well formed technique, it seems to me, [is one] that can control and vary a beautiful sound quality.
frédéric chopin— Chopin: Pianist and Teacher as Seen by His Pupils by Jean-Jacques Eigeldinger (1986)
The greatest improvement in the productive powers of labour, and the greatest part of skill, dexterity, and judgment with which it is any where directed, or applied, seem to have been the effects of the division of labour.
Adam Smith— Chapter I, p. 7
This great increase of the quantity of work which, in consequence of the division of labour, the same number of people are capable of performing, is owing to three different circumstances; first, to the increase of dexterity in every particular workman; secondly, to the saving of the time which is commonly lost in passing from one species of work to another; and lastly, to the invention of a great number of machines which facilitate and abridge labour, and enable one man to do the work of many.
Adam Smith— Chapter I (Book I)
I have seen a trifle decide the most important issues in the gravest affairs. It is only by prudence , wisdom , and dexterity, that great ends are attained and obstacles overcome. Without these qualities nothing succeeds
— Napoleon Bonaparte, in Napoleon in his own words from the French of Jules Bertaut, ?, p.6
It is not by muscle, speed, or physical dexterity that great things are achieved, but by reflection, force of character, and judgment; in these qualities old age is not only not poorer, but even richer.
Marcus Tillius Cicero— In Erdman Ballagh Palmore Ageism: Negative and Positive (1999, p.128)
Patience, to hear frivolous, impertinent, and unreasonable applications: with address enough to refuse, without offending; or, by your manner of granting, to double the obligation: dexterity enough to conceal a truth, without telling a lie: sagacity enough to read other people’s countenances: and serenity enough not to let them discover anything by yours; a seeming frankness, with a real reserve. These are the rudiments of a politician; the world must be your grammar.
stanhope, philip, 4th earl of chesterfield— January 15, 1748.
The greatest improvement in the productive powers of labour, and the greatest part of skill, dexterity, and judgment with which it is any where directed, or applied, seem to have been the effects of the division of labour.
— Adam Smith (1776) The Wealth of Nations Chapter I, p. 7
For many parts of Nature can neither be invented with sufficient subtlety, nor demonstrated with sufficient perspicuity , nor accommodated unto use with sufficient dexterity, without the aid and intervening of the mathematics , of which sort are perspective, music , astronomy , cosmography , architecture , engineery, and divers others.
— Sir Francis Bacon, in Tom Sorell, et al., Scientia in Early Modern Philosophy: Seventeenth-Century Thinkers on Demonstrative Knowledge from First Principles, Springer, 28 October 2009, p.4
When the technical problems of finger dexterity have been solved, it is too late to add musicality, phrasing and musical expression . That is why I never practice mechanically. If we work mechanically, we run the risk of changing the very nature of music .
— Daniel Barenboim, in A Life in Music, in How to Phrase, or It’s All in the Phrasing!, HarpMastery
He who asks fortune-tellers the future unwittingly forfeits an inner intimation of coming events that is a thousand times more exact than anything they may say. He is impelled by inertia , rather than curiosity , and nothing is more unlike the submissive apathy with which he hears his fate revealed than the alert dexterity with which the man of courage lays hands on the future.
— Walter Benjamin, in Impelled, Dictionary.com
It's a program that uses magic as a form of therapy for people with disabilities, where magic is taught to patients in hospitals to help them regain their dexterity and their coordination by learning sleight of hand, in addition to boosting the patient's self-esteem by giving them a skill that an able-bodied person doesn't even have.
— David Copperfield, in David Copperfield became a dad 16 months ago, azcentral.com
[SAT scores for admission]...the tyranny of the big test. While conceding that the SAT measures " mental dexterity," the test does not capture qualities such as " motivation " or what the student learned in high school.
— Ann Coulter, quoting editorial in Times, in The tyranny of non-objectivity, 20 July 2000
One of most attractive sports of the rancheros and the peasantry , and that which more than any other calls for the exercise of skill and dexterity, is called Correr el gallo , practiced generally on St. John's Day.
— Gregg, in William Watts Hart Davis El Gringo, or, New Mexico and her people, Harper and Brothers, 1857, p.188
I have no doubt that playing today's games does in fact improve your visual intelligence and your manual dexterity, but the virtues of gaming run far deeper than hand-eye coordination.
— Steven Johnson, in Everything Bad is Good for You, Penguin, 2 May 2006, p.24
He has blinding hand speed and great dexterity. He can punch going forwards and backwards which is the mark of a true Champion . There's no one like him in the world today.
— Don King, in Sports diary, Daily Times, 21 September 2005
If you take something like Cthulhu in Lovecraft, for example, it is completely incomprehensible and beyond all human categorization. But in the game Call of Cthulhu, you see Cthulhu's “strength,” “dexterity,” and so on, carefully expressed numerically.
— China Miéville, in Joan Gordon Reveling in Genre: An Interview with China Miéville, Science Fiction Studies, #91 = Volume 30, Part 3 = November 2003
Far from blushing at conduct so contrary to equity , to right, and to national honesty , they boast of their dexterity, and pretend that they deserve the name of great negotiators.
— Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston, in John Henry Barrow The Mirror of Parliament for the ... Session of the ... Parliament ..., Volume 4, Longman, Orme, Brown, Green & Longmans, 1832, p.3211
You owe the Wigs great gratitude, my Lord, and therefore I think you will betray them. Your lordship is like a favourite footman on easy terms with his mistress. Your dexterity seems a happy compound of the smartness of an attorney's clerk and the intrigue of a Greek of the lower empire.
temple, henry, 3rd viscount palmerston— Lord Palmerston to Benjamin Disraeli, Lord Beconsfield, in Ashley Montagu The Anatomy of Swearing, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1967, p. 98
Slowly, but very deliberately, the brooding edifice of seduction , creaking and incongruous, came into being, a vast Heath Robinson mechanism, dually controlled by them and lumbering gloomily down vistas of triteness. With a sort of heavy-fisted dexterity the mutually adapted emotions of each of them became synchronized, until the unavoidable anti-climax was at hand.
— Anthony Powell, in Lisa Colletta Dark Humor and Social Satire in the Modern British Novel, Palgrave Macmillan, 1 October 2003, p.121
...if you take up video-gaming, even casually, you can expect the following benefits: decreased overall reaction times, increased eye-hand coordination, and enhanced manual dexterity. You'll improve your spatial visualization skills and your ability to mentally work in three dimensions.
— Richard Restak, in Donald B. Egolf, Human Communication and the Brain: Building the Foundation for the Field of Neurocommunication, Lexington Books, 5 April 2012, p.11
Some of my Arcanum bunkmates taught me a card game called dogs-breath. I returned the favor by giving an impromptu lesson in psychology , probability , and manual dexterity. I won almost two whole talents before they stopped inviting me back to their games.
— Patrick Rothfuss, in let’s read the name of the wind ch. 48-49, wordpress.com, 24 April 2013
The greatest improvement in the productive powers of labour , and the greater part of the skill , dexterity, and judgment with which it is any where directed, or applied, seem to have been the effects of the division of labour.
— Adam Smith, William Playfair, in An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Volume 1, O. D. Cooke, 1811, p.4
I have serviced no kings , yet I wager that I can shave a cheek with ten times more dexterity than any street mountebank!
— Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (musical), in Sweeney Todd - The Contest Lyrics, Sweets Lyrics,
It is only by prudence, wisdom, and dexterity, that great ends are attained and obstacles overcome. Without these qualities nothing succeeds.
— Napoleon I of France, Napoleon : In His Own Words (1916).
