quotations about talent
Because many talents are first identified and nurtured in childhood, it can be difficult to determine whether talent is innate, can be acquired through extensive practice or can only be acquired in the presence of the developing brain.
FRANCESCA HAPPE & UTA FRITH
Autism and Talent
Great and decided talent is a tower of strength which cannot be subverted. Envy, detraction, and persecution, are missiles hurled against it only to fall harmless at its base, and to strengthen what they cannot overthrow. It seeks not the applause of the present moment, in which folly or mediocrity often secure the preference; but it extends its bright and prophetic vision through the "dark obscure" of distant time, and bequeaths to remote generations the vindication of its honor and fame, and the clear comprehensions of its truths.
LORD ACTON
Acton; Or, The Circle of Life
For some, talent is a renewable resource; for others, it's subject to depletion.
ANN HORNADAY
"If Daniel Day-Lewis is really done acting, is it any surprise he did it on his own terms?", Washington Post, June 22, 2017
Talent is the intersection of skills, knowledge, and behaviors, and everyone has it.
CASEY WARDYNSKI, DAVID S. LYLE & MICHAEL J. COLARUSSO
Talent: Implications for a U. S. Army Officer Corps Strategy
Talent is never static. It's always growing or dying.
STEPHEN KING
Entertainment Weekly, August 17, 2007
Talent is the infinite capacity for imitating genius.
EVAN ESAR
20,000 Quips & Quotes
The world is always ready to receive talent with open arms; very often it does not know what to do with genius. Talent is a docile creature; it bows its head meekly while the world slips the collar over it; it backs into the shafts like a lamb. It draws its load cheerfully, and is patient of the bit and of the whip. But genius is always impatient of its harness; its wild blood makes it hard to train.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES
The Professor at the Breakfast Table
Pride not thyself upon thy talents: they were given thee at thy birth. Hast thou done aught before thy birth to deserve them?
IVAN PANIN
Thoughts
When a man has displayed talent in some particular path, and left all competitors behind him in it, the world are too apt to give him credit for universality of genius, and to anticipate for him success in all that he undertakes.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON
Lacon
We each after a while have to become reconciled to what it is that our talents and appetites lead us to.
TOBIAS WOLFF
Fiction Writers Review, April 5, 2009
It is a very rare thing for a man of talent to succeed by his talent.
JOSEPH ROUX
Meditations of a Parish Priest
Talent is often mistaken for genius, especially by the man who has it.
EVAN ESAR
20,000 Quips & Quotes
It is an uncontrolled truth, that no man ever made an ill figure who understood his own talents, nor a good one who mistook them.
JONATHAN SWIFT
letter to Ventoso, April 28, 1731
Talent, for talent's sake, is a bauble and a show. Talent working with joy in the cause of universal truth lifts the possessor to new power as a benefactor.
RALPH WALDO EMERSON
"Progress of Culture"
Retaining the best talent is how a company maintains resilience in a world defined by variation and unpredictability.
GRETCHEN DIGBY
"Hiring Lackluster Talent Hurts Your Company's Resilience -- And Reputation", Forbes, June 16, 2017
If you have this enormous talent, it's got you by the balls, it's a demon. You can't be a family man and a husband and a caring person and be that animal. Dickens wasn't that nice a guy.
DUSTIN HOFFMAN
Empire, August 1992
It always seemed to me a sort of clever stupidity only to have one sort of talent--almost like a carrier pigeon.
GEORGE ELIOT
The Mill on the Floss
Talent only gives an imperfect image--the broken glimmer of a countenance. But the features of Genius remain unruffled.
ROBERT ELDRIDGE ARIS WILLMOTT
Pleasures of Literature
I believe in talent. I know you're not supposed to believe in that anymore because you're supposed to believe if you just work hard you can do anything. That's how you succeed, maybe. But talent is something you're born with. You cannot acquire it by working hard, and you cannot lose it by lying around either.
FRAN LEBOWITZ
"In Conversation: Fran Lebowitz with Phong Bui", The Brooklyn Rail, March 4, 2014
Talent is that which is in a man's power; genius is that in whose power a man is.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Rousseau and the Sentimentalists