Dexterity Quotes
More Dexterity Quotes
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
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
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
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 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.
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
Yet what makes the show what it is - a truly mesmerising theatrical event that should live forever in the memory - is the magic and the variety, speed and dexterity with which Brown performs it.
— Derren Brown, in Derren Brown: Enigma Tour, The Stage Media Company Limited , 18 June 2010
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)
When any work seems to have required immense force and labor to affect it, the idea is grand. Stonehenge , neither for disposition nor ornament, has anything admirable; but those huge rude masses of stone, set on end, and piled each on other, turn the mind on the immense force necessary for such a work. Nay, the rudeness of the work increases this cause of grandeur, as it excludes the idea of art and contrivance; for dexterity produces another sort of effect, which is different enough from this.
Edmund Burke— Part II Section XII
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
One needs only to study a certain positioning of the hand in relation to the keys to obtain with ease the most beautiful quality of sound , to know how to play long notes and short notes and [to attain] unlimited dexterity ... A well-formed technique, it seems to me, [is one] that can control and vary [ bien nuancer ] a beautiful sound quality.
frédéric chopin— Frédéric Chopin, in Robin Elliott, et al., Centre and Periphery, Roots and Exile: Interpreting the Music of István Anhalt, György Kurtág, and Sándor Veress, Wilfrid Laurier Univ. Press, 15 September 2011, p.42
[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'm a leader in an industry that misdirected your attention with the dexterity of Harry Houdini while sending hundreds of thousands of our bravest young men and women off to war without due diligence .
— The Newsroom (U.S. TV series)]], in Donna Anderson Why Every American Should Watch “The Newsroom, HBO Watch, 12 July 2013
I think the balance is right - we've got decent size, decent speed and decent dexterity with the ball.
— Brian Noble, in Noble upbeat despite GB injuries, BBC, 18 October 2005
Have you ever noticed how few sitting places you find in private gardens How seldom the versatility and importance of benches is considered True gardeners, with their peerless taste , dexterity and inspired planting, never stop ... To sit is almost an offence, a sign of depravity and an outrage towards every felicitous refinement that has gone into making a garden .
— w:Mirabel OslerMirabel Osler, in Bonnie Helander Southern Living Idea Home Offers Garden Inspiration, 17 June 2012
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
Art if it is successful in the task of questioning reality , if it is good painting and not merely a performance of dexterity, will be an affirmation of God .
— Patrick Swift, in PS -- of Course: Patrick Swift, 1927-1983, Gandon Editions, 1993, p.216
With his almost acid sharpness of insight , with his almost animal dexterity in act , there went none of that large, unconscious geniality of the world ’s heroes.
— Henry David Thoreau, in The Cornhill Magazine, 1880, p.665
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).
