Gross and vulgar minds will always pay a higher respect to wealth than to talent; for wealth, although it be a far less efficient source of power than talent, happens to be far more intelligible.--_Colton._
The man who is born with a talent which he is meant to use, finds his greatest happiness in using it.
Whatever you are from nature, keep to it; never desert your own line of talent. Be what nature intended you for, and you will succeed; be anything else, and you will be ten thousand times worse than nothing!--_Sydney Smith._
It always seemed to me a sort of clever stupidity only to have one sort of talent,--almost like a carrier-pigeon.--_George Eliot._
Invention is the talent of youth, and judgment of age.
Genius does what it must, and talent does what it can.
What you are essentially advocating at Semco is harnessing the wisdom of people,” a friend once told me. “Their reservoir of talent, the natural wisdom of the system, the wisdom that only comes from freedom, the wisdom that emerges however unevenly from democracy. Wisdom is what you get by asking why….” I wish I had said that first, but I didn’t so I’ll second it.
Human wisdom makes as ill use of her talent when she exercises it in rescinding from the number and sweetness of those pleasures that are naturally our due, as she employs it favorably, and well, in artificially disguising and tricking out the ills of life to alleviate the sense of them.--_Montaigne._
When poor men make requests of us we usually answer them as the echo does the voice--the answer cuts off half the petition. We shall seldom find among men Jael's courtesy, giving milk to those that ask water, except it be as this was, an entangling benefit, the better to introduce a mischief. There are not many Naamans among us, that, when you beg of them one talent, will force you to take two; but God's answer to our prayers is like a multiplying glass, which renders the request much greater in the answer than it was in the prayer.--_Bishop Reynolds._
Ingeniis patuit campus, certusque merenti / Stat favor: ornatur propriis industria donis=--The field is open to talent and merit is sure of its reward. The gifts with which industry is crowned are her own.
To do easily what is difficult for others is the mark of talent.
";Talent does what it can; genius does what it must."
The cut= (of the vesture) =betokens intellect and talent, so does the colour betoken temper and heart.
Hic patet ingeniis campus, certusque merenti / Stat favor: ornatur propriis industria donis=--Here is a field open for talent, and here merit will have certain favour, and industry be graced with its due reward.
The true eye for talent presupposes the true reverence for it.
Many questions haven't been answered as yet. Our poets may be wrong; but what can any of us do with his talent but try to develop his vision, so that through frequent failures we may learn better what we have missed in the past.
If cut= (in the costume) =betoken intellect and talent, so does the colour betoken temper and heart.
Though a man has all other perfections and wants discretion, he will be of no great consequence in the world; but if he has this single talent in perfection, and but a common share of others, he may do what he pleases in his particular station of life.--_Addison._
We should guard against a talent which we cannot hope to practise in perfection. Improve it as we may, we shall always in the end, when the merit of the master has become apparent to us, painfully lament the loss of time and strength devoted to such botching.
Everyone has talent at twenty-five. The difficulty is to have it at fifty.
A man may be a miser of his wealth; he may tie up his talent in a napkin; he may hug himself in his reputation; but he is always generous in his love. Love cannot stay at home; a man cannot keep it to himself. Like light, it is constantly traveling. A man must spend it, must give it away.--_Macleod._
Art must not be a superficial talent, but must begin further back in man.
I have feelings too. I am still human. All I want is to be loved, for myself and for my talent.
I don't speak for others and they don't speak for me. Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself; but talent instantly recognizes genius.
Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself; but talent instantly recognizes genius.
Es bildet ein Talent sich in der Stille, / Sich ein Character in dem Strom der Welt=--A talent is formed in retirement, a character in the current of the world.
A career is born in public—talent in privacy.
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.
Unde / Ingenium par materi??=--Where can we find talent equal to the subject?
Ingeniorum cos ?mulatio=--Rivalry is the whetstone of talent.
La carriere ouverte aux talents=--The course is open to men of talent--the tools to the man that can handle them (of which truth Napoleon has been described as the great preacher).
~Reputation.~--Reputation is one of the prizes for which men contend: it is, as Mr. Burke calls it, "the cheap defence and ornament of nations, and the nurse of manly exertions;" it produces more labor and more talent then twice the wealth of a country could ever rear up. It is the coin of genius; and it is the imperious duty of every man to bestow it with the most scrupulous justice and the wisest economy.--_Sydney Smith._
Genius is the gold in the mine; talent is the miner who works and brings it out.
What men want is not talent, it is purpose; not the power to achieve, but the will to labor.--_Bulwer-Lytton._
Vis comica=--Comic power, or a talent for comedy.
~Talent.~--It is adverse to talent to be consorted and trained up with inferior minds or inferior companions, however high they may rank. The foal of the racer neither finds out his speed, nor calls out his powers, if pastured out with the common herd that are destined for the collar and the yoke.--_Colton._
And sure th' Eternal Master found His single talent well employ'd.
I’ve always had a talent for recognizing when I am in a moment worth being nostalgic for.
~Fact.~--There should always be some foundation of fact for the most airy fabric, and pure invention is but the talent of a deceiver.--_Byron._
When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left and could say, I used everything you gave me
Modest expression is a beautiful setting to the diamond of talent and genius.
Each man has his own vocation; his talent is his call. There is one direction in which all space is open to him.
There never was a talent, even for real literature, but was primarily a talent for something infinitely better of the silent kind.
Dirty work wants little talent and no conscience.--_George Eliot._
There can be no comparison between the talent, art and theory of painting and that of sculpture, which leaves perspective out of account,--perspective which is produced by the quality of the material and not of the artist. And if the sculptor says that he cannot restore the superabundant substance which has once been removed from his work, I answer that he who removes too much has but little understanding and is no master. Because if he has mastered the proportions he will not remove anything unnecessarily; therefore we will say that this disadvantage is inherent in the artist and not in the material. But I will not speak of such men, for they are spoilers of marble and not artists.
We praise the dramatic poet who possesses the art of drawing tears--a talent which he has in common with the meanest onion!--_Heinrich Heine._
Ne forcons point notre talent; / Nous ne ferions rien avec grace=--Let us not force our faculty; we shall in that case do nothing to good effect.
A fool may sometimes have talent, but he never has judgment.
And it works. There have now been many studies of elite performers—international violinists, chess grand masters, professional ice-skaters, mathematicians, and so forth—and the biggest difference researchers find between them and lesser performers is the cumulative amount of deliberate practice they’ve had. Indeed, the most important talent may be the talent for practice itself. K. Anders Ericsson, a cognitive psychologist and expert on performance, notes that the most important way in which innate factors play a role may be in one’s willingness to engage in sustained training.
It is neither talent, nor power, nor gifts that do the work of God, but it is that which lies within the power of the humblest; it is the simple, earnest life hid with Christ in God.--_F. W. Robertson._
Persons of fine manners make behaviour the first sign of force,--behaviour, and not performance, or talent, or, much less, wealth.
I certainly have not the talent which some people possess," said Darcy, "of conversing easily with those I have never seen before.
Beware of a talent which you cannot hope to cultivate to perfection.
This is how I define talent; it is a gift God has given us in secret, which we reveal without knowing it.
Thrasyllus the Cynic begged a drachm of Antigonus. "That," said he, "is too little for a king to give." "Why, then," said the other, "give me a talent." "And that," said he, "is too much for a Cynic (or, for a dog) to receive."
The greatest and the best talent that God gives to any man or woman in this world is the talent of prayer. And the best usury that any man or woman brings back to God when He comes to reckon with them at the end of this world is a life of prayer. And those servants best put their Lord's money to the exchangers who rise early and sit late, as long as they are in this world, ever finding out, and ever following after better and better methods of prayer, and ever forming more secret, more steadfast, and more spiritually fruitful habits of prayer, till they literally pray without ceasing, and till they continually strike out into new enterprises in prayer, and new achievements, and new enrichments.--_Alex. Whyte._
With ordinary talent and extraordinary perseverance, all things are attainable.
To carry on the feelings of childhood into the powers of manhood, to combine the child's sense of wonder and novelty with the appearances which every day, for perhaps forty years, has rendered familiar; this is the character and privilege of genius, and one of the marks which distinguish genius from talent.
Luck was just another name for the intersection between talent and timing and faith. And
A really great talent finds its happiness in execution.
The world is wide enough for all to live and let live, and every one has an enemy in his own talent, who gives him quite enough to do. But no! one gifted man and one talented persecutes another ... and each seeks to make the other hateful.
Friendship is everything. Friendship is more than talent. It is more than the government. It is almost the equal of family.- Don Corleone
Das Talent arbeitet, das Genie schafft=--Talent works, genius creates.
But though a better organization of governments would greatly diminish the force of the objection to the mere multiplication of their duties, it would still remain true that in all the more advanced communities, the great majority of things are worse done by the intervention of government, than the individuals most interested in the matter would do them, or cause them to be done, if left to themselves. The grounds of this truth are expressed with tolerable exactness in the popular dictum, that people understand their own business and their own interests better, and care for them more, than the government does, or can be expected to do. This maxim holds true throughout the greatest part of the business of life, and wherever it is true we ought to condemn every kind of government intervention that conflicts with it. The inferiority of government agency, for example, in any of the common operations of industry or commerce, is proved by the fact, that it is hardly ever able to maintain itself in equal competition with individual agency, where the individuals possess the requisite degree of industrial enterprise, and can command the necessary assemblage of means. All the facilities which a government enjoys of access to information; all the means which it possess of remunerating, and therefore of commanding, the best available talent in the market — are not an equivalent for the one great disadvantage of an inferior interest in the result. [ Principles of Political Economy , Book V, Chapter XI, § 5.]
To do what is impossible for talent is the mark of genius.
What men want is not talent; it is purpose.
Celebrity is the chastisement of merit and the punishment of talent.
He possessed a peculiar talent of producing effect in whatever he said or did.
Entre esprit et talent il y a la proportion du tout a sa partie=--Wit is to talent as a whole to a part.
Everyone has talent. What's rare is the courage to follow it to the dark places where it leads.
Widespread intellectual and moral docility may be convenient for leaders in the short term, but it is suicidal for nations in the long term. One of the criteria for national leadership should therefore be a talent for understanding, encouraging, and making constructive use of vigorous criticism.
I have myself practised the art of sculpture as well as that of painting, and I have practised both arts in the same degree. I think, therefore, that I can give an impartial opinion as to which of the two is the most difficult: the most perfect requires the greater talent, and is to be preferred.
All talent, all intellect, is in the first place moral.
It is the curse of talent, that, though it works more surely and persistently than genius, it reaches no goal; while genius, hovering for long on the summit= (_Spitze_) =of the ideal, looks round, smiling, far above.
Doing easily what others find difficult is talent; doing what is impossible for talent is genius.
A chacun selon sa capacite, a chaque capacite selon ses ?uvres=--Every one according to his talent, and every talent according to its works.
It is a great misfortune not to possess talent enough to speak well, or sense enough to hold one's tongue.
Genius makes its observations in shorthand; talent writes them out at length.
Every language has to be learnt, but who made the language that was to be learnt? It matters little whether we call language an instinct, a gift, a talent, a faculty, or the _proprium_ of man; certain it is that neither language, nor the power of language, nor the conditions under which alone language can exist, are to be discovered anywhere in the whole animal kingdom, except in man.
To my mind the birth of a child is not a breach of the law of continuity, but on that very ground I must admit the previous existence of the Self that is here born as a child, and which brings with it into this new order of things simply its Self-consciousness, and even that not developed but undeveloped potentia, in a sleep. When afterwards a child awakes to self-consciousness, that is really its remembrance of its former existence. The Self which it becomes conscious of, remember, is in its essence not of this world only, but of a former as well as of a future world. This constitutes in fact the only distinct remembrance in every human being of a former life. There are besides indistinct remembrances of his former existence, viz. the many dispositions which every thinking man finds in himself, and which are not simply the result of the impressions of this world on a so-called _tabula rasa_. Unless we begin life as _tabula rasa_ we begin it as _tabula preparata_, as _leukomata_, and whatever colour or disposition, or talent, or temperament, whatever there is inexplicable in each individual, that he will perceive, or possibly remember, as the result of the continuity between his present and former life.
The talent of success is nothing more than doing what you can do well; and doing well whatever you do, without a thought of fame.--_Longfellow._
When a good man has talent, he always works morally for the salvation of the world.
La ruse est le talent des egoistes, et ne peut tromper que les sots que prennent la turbulence pour l'esprit, la gravite pour la prudence, effronterie pour le talent, l'orgueil pour la dignite.=--Cunning is the accomplishment of the selfish, and can only impose upon silly people, who take bluster for sense, gravity for prudence, effrontery for talent, and pride for dignity.
The two sources of all quack-talent are cunning and impudence.
Those who remember the happiness of the simple faith of their childhood may well ask why it should ever be disturbed. Knowing the blessedness of that faith we naturally abstain from everything that might disturb it prematurely in the minds of those who are entrusted to us. But, as the child, whether he likes it or not, grows to be a man, so the faith of a child grows into the faith of a man. It is not our doing, it is the work of Him who made us what we are. As all our other ideas grow and change, so does our idea of God. I know there are men and women who, when they perceive the first warnings of that inward growth, become frightened and suppress it with all their might. They shut their eyes and ears to all new light from within and from without. They wish to remain as happy as children, and many of them succeed in remaining as good as children. Who would blame them or disturb them? But those who trust in God and God's work within them, must go forth to the battle. With them it would be cowardice and faithlessness to shrink from the trial. They are not certain that they were meant to be here simply to enjoy the happiness of a childlike faith. They feel they have a talent committed to them which must not be wrapped up in a napkin. But the battle is hard, and all the harder because, while they know they are obeying the voice of truth, which is the voice of God, many of those whom they love look upon them as disobeying the voice of God, as disturbers of the peace, as giving offence to those little ones.
Gross and vulgar minds will always pay a higher respect to wealth than to talent; for wealth, although it is a far less efficient source of power than talent, happens to be far more intelligible.
Odi puerulos pr?coci ingenio=--I hate boys of precocious talent.
Let the path be open to talent.
A musician of more ambition than talent composed an elegy at the death of composer Edward MacDowell. She played the elegy for the pianist Josef Hoffman, then asked his opinion. "Well, it's quite nice," he replied, but don't you think it would be better if..." "If what?" asked the composer. "If ... if you had died and MacDowell had written the elegy?"
You have literary talent that you should take pains to develop.
Bower's Law: Talent goes where the action is.
Children's talent to endure stems from their ignorance of alternatives. -- Maya Angelou, "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings"
Genius is the talent of a person who is dead.
QOTD: Talent does what it can, genius what it must. I do what I get paid to do.
The Worst Musical Trio There are few bad musicians who have a chance to give a recital at a famous concert hall while still learning the rudiments of their instrument. This happened about thirty years ago to the son of a Rumanian gentleman who was owed a personal favour by Georges Enesco, the celebrated violinist. Enesco agreed to give lessons to the son who was quite unhampered by great musical talent. Three years later the boy's father insisted that he give a public concert. "His aunt said that nobody plays the violin better than he does. A cousin heard him the other day and screamed with enthusiasm." Although Enesco feared the consequences, he arranged a recital at the Salle Gaveau in Paris. However, nobody bought a ticket since the soloist was unknown. "Then you must accompany him on the piano," said the boy's father, "and it will be a sell out." Reluctantly, Enesco agreed and it was. On the night an excited audience gathered. Before the concert began Enesco became nervous and asked for someone to turn his pages. In the audience was Alfred Cortot, the brilliant pianist, who volunteered and made his way to the stage. The soloist was of uniformly low standard and next morning the music critic of Le Figaro wrote: "There was a strange concert at the Salle Gaveau last night. The man whom we adore when he plays the violin played the piano. Another whom we adore when he plays the piano turned the pages. But the man who should have turned the pages played the violin." -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures"
The University of California Bears announced the signing of Reggie Philbin to a letter of intent to attend Cal next Fall. Philbin is said to make up for no talent by cheating well. Says Philbin of his decision to attend Cal, "I'm in it for the free ride."
Oprah Winfrey has an incredible talent for getting the weirdest people to talk to. And you just HAVE to watch it. "Blind, masochistic minority, crippled, depressed, government latrine diggers, and the women who love them too much on the next Oprah Winfrey."
"(The Chief Programmer) personally defines the functional and performance specifications, designs the program, codes it, tests it, and writes its documentation... He needs great talent, ten years experience and considerable systems and applications knowledge, whether in applied mathematics, business data handling, or whatever." -- Fred P. Brooks, _The Mythical Man Month_