"To know one's limitations and then to act ..."

I like A.S. Byatt. I first fell in love with her writing when I read Possession: A Romance. Read a couple of short stories that resonated deeply and now I am begin The Virgin in the Garden trilogy. Here is her speaking through a charismatic priest recruiting for the church.

"Very few people, he said, knew what they were really capable of. Most were afraid to find out. And afraid that circumstances might nevertheless force them to know. Better —he spread his hand, flickering, straining fingers — better to walk out and face it, purposefully, for a good reason. It was hard for man to know he had only one life, could do only so much and no more. But such knowledge, like all knowledge, was really power. To know one’s limitations and then to act, and act again, was power, and engendered more power. A man must use his life, must think how to use it." (The Virgin in the Garden, p.54)

Priest or no priest, words to live by.