Quotes About Talent

No person who is not a great sculptor or painter can be an architect. If he is not a sculptor or painter, he can only be a builder.

A great thing can only be done by a great person and they do it without effort.

Mai looked around, marveling at the nearly finished paintings on the stairwell's walls.....Mai wished that she could create something as beautiful. She was certain that to create such beauty, the painter must have laughed many times.

Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan 'press on' has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race." Calvin Coolidge

I'm convinced that, unfortunately, the general direction of rule changes for a long time has been to carve out greater space for the individual athlete while curbing the impact of team play. This narrows the opportunities to participate. In general, only "cookie cutter" athletic prodigies get serious looks. In my opinion, tinkering with the game to distort the natural balance between team and individual play is counterproductive.

Persons of genius, it is true, are, and are always likely to be, a small minority; but in order to have them, it is necessary to preserve the soil in which they grow. Genius

People think genius a fine thing if it enables a man to write an exciting poem, or paint a picture. But in its true sense, that of originality in thought and action, though no one says that it is not a thing to be admired, nearly all, at heart, think that they can do very well without it.

I get appalled when I see good drivers being left on the sidelines because they haven't come up with the half million to a million to put themselves in a competitive car.

I do not care how learned a man may be, or how extensively he may have traveled; I do not care what his talent, intellect or genius may be, at what college he may have studied, how comprehensive his views or what his judgment may be on other matters, he cannot understand certain things without the Spirit of God, and that necessarily introduces the principle . . . of revelation.

If a thing is done well, no one will ask how long it took to do it, but only, who did it.

As a writer, politician, scientist, and businessman, [Ben] Franklin had few equals among the educated of his day—though he left school at ten. (...) Boys like Andrew Carnegie who begged his mother not to send him to school and was well on his way to immortality and fortune at the age of thirteen, would be referred today for psychological counseling; Thomas Edison would find himself in Special Ed until his peculiar genius had been sufficiently tamed.

I've come to believe that genius is an exceedingly common human quality, probably natural to most of us. I didn't want to accept that notion — far from it: my own training in two elite universities taught me that intelligence and talent distributed themselves economically over a bell curve and that human destiny, because of those mathematical, seemingly irrefutable scientific facts, was as rigorously determined as John Calvin contended.

At the heart of any school reforms that aren't simply tuning the mudsill mechanism lie two beliefs: 1) That talent, intelligence, grace, and high accomplishment are within the reach of every kid, and 2) That we are better off working for ourselves than for a boss.

Genius is an exceedingly common human quality, probably natural to most of us.

You have to do everything you possibly can to develop your middle tier of talent. It's your job, as the leader, to make those people do more than they thought they could—maybe more than you thought they could—and put them in the best possible position to help the team.

He is Magic Johnson with a jump shot, all right. Larry Bird's jump shot. Lloyd Daniels can do everything with a basketball except one. . . . Autograph it.

She had taken voice and piano lessons for ten years as a child, had considered a career as a singer before the lure of space grew too strong.

Her sense of pitch was near-perfect, and it was critical to the blimp speech.

For every talent that poverty has stimulated it has blighted a hundred.

Talent alone does not make someone an expert.

Well we have a good working relationship with Microsoft at the development level. But let's not kid ourselves, this is a company with enormous resources and talented people, and there is a certain pride that comes along with that for them and for us.

Ability is a poor man's wealth.

Winning takes talent, to repeat takes character.

I'd rather have a lot of talent and a little experience than a lot of experience and a little talent.