Quotes About Talent

He knew he was overfastidious. But how could one write history with Macaulay so close behind? Fiction or poetry, in the midst of the greatest galaxy of talent in the history of English literature? How could one be a creative scientist, with Lyell and Darwin still alive? Be a statesman, with Disraeli and Gladstone polarizing all the available space? You will see that Charles set his sights high. Intelligent idlers always have, in order to justify their idleness to their intelligence.

had a flair for the narrative

We're getting flooded with tips about illegals sneaking into the country, and they're not coming here to wash dishes and lay concrete. They're organizing homegrown talent to wage jihad. Finding, monitoring, and stopping them has a far greater priority than the corruption that once got us excited.

Naw, we still have the votes statewide. I can't imagine Mississippi ever electing a Republican governor. Your religion won't matter. We just need some new talent.

He was one of those people things came easily to, but he did little to demonstrate that he deserved to be gifted.

YOU DON'T HAVE TO DO ANYTHING TO BE AN ENGLISH MAJOR, YOU DON'T NEED ANY SPECIAL TALENT, YOU JUST HAVE TO PAY ATTENTION TO WHAT SOMEONE WANTS YOU TO SEE—TO WHAT MAKES SOMEONE ANGRIEST, OR THE MOST EXCITED IN SOME OTHER WAY. IT'S SO EASY; I THINK THAT'S WHY THERE ARE SO MANY ENGLISH MAJORS

As in many things, my mother could be extremely accomplished without being in the least original or even inventive.

The woods would be very silent if no birds sang except those who sang the best.

And who knows? Those people might have much better things to do than to loiter about Levy Pants, such as composing jazz or creating new dances or doing whatever those things are that they do with such facility.

In practice, the individual or individuals at the top of these institutions are often there because, as happens regularly in great organizations, theirs was mentally the most predictable and, in consequence, bureaucratically the least inimical of the contending talent.

Men of genius do not destroy themselves along with so many others and invite such a dismal end.

When I was about twelve I used to think I must be a genius, but nobody's noticed. If there is such a thing as a genius, I am one, and if there isn't I don't care.

All anybody needs to know about prizes is that Mozart never won one. HENRY MITCHELL

Haven't you known highly talented people who have squandered their potential because they wouldn't do anything? And don't you know people less talented than you who are more successful? That is often due, in part, to commitment.

Education and the workforce: I think these two things go together in terms of human potential.

The Academies of Art are nothing but great painting factories - those with talent are fed in at one end, and they come out as mechanical painting machines.

That Edison or Lincoln could have been Edison or Lincoln after four years of Harvard is improbable.

In a sense I'm glad that I've never learned how to paint.

Creativity can be learned like basketball, which does not mean we will all be NBA stars.

If he had had no education, maybe Basho could have been a much greater poet.

The armoury of having any academic education does not necessarily set you up for being a good or better actor.

Aptitudes are assumed, they should become accomplishments. That is the purpose of all education.

Education, however indispensable in a cultivated age, produces nothing on the side of genius. When education ends, genius often begins.

I am playing the violin, that's all I know, nothing else, no education, no nothing. You just practice every day.