There is within each of us a potential for greatness.  And greatness is not measured by objective achievement alone, but needs to take its starting point into account.  An Irish proverb says: Praise the ripe field not the green corn.  And to Oliver Cromwell is attributed: “None climbs so high as he who knows not whither he is going.”  To which we would add: it doesn’t matter how far you have come or where you wish to go, you can always get there from here.

The aim of Nurturing Potential is to provide signposts, to suggest less-travelled footpaths, to open up new vistas and new territories, and to recommend different maps for familiar territories.  To this end we will be providing serious and light-hearted material, for we believe the frivolous can be as didactic as the academic.

Your bouquets and brickbats will be equally welcome.  Even more appreciated will be your contributions by way of articles, comments and suggestions.  And do not neglect the Letters’ page.

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The deepest personal defeat suffered by human beings is constituted by the difference between what one was capable of becoming and what one has in fact become

[Ashley Montagu]

Treat people as if they were what they ought to be and you help them to become what they are capable of being 

[Johann W. von Goethe]

One of the saddest experiences that can come to a human being is to awaken, grey-haired and wrinkled, near the close of an unproductive career, to the fact that all through the years he has been using only a small part of himself 

[V.W. Burrows]

Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the men of old. Seek what they sought.

[Basho]