Quotes About Skill

When a workman is unceasingly and exclusively engaged in the fabrication of one thing, he ultimately does his work with singular dexterity; but, at the same time, he loses the general faculty of applying his mind to the direction of the work. His every day becomes more of adroit and less industrious; so that it may be said of him, that, in proportion as the workman improves, the man is degraded. Alexis de Tocqueville

The technocrats saw expertise as the only measure of a person.

It is almost possible to measure a writer's skill by the dexterity with which he repeats, and yet avoids monotony.

This was above my pay grade. I had no idea how to deal with this sort of magic. That was okay. I was a quick learner.

The schematicism by which our understanding deals with the phenomenal world ... is a skill so deeply hidden in the human soul that we shall hardly guess the secret trick that Nature here employs.

Of what value after all is a power which one could never use, or at any rate did not know how to use?

I think one should pay so much attention to technique, don't you? Like learning to draw before you paint.

The activity of translating, which had seemed the plainest thing in the world, turned out to be an act so complex and extraordinary that it was puzzling to see how any human being could perform it.

The games are always been played, and no one plays the games like me. You just have to be the best. And I usually am.

Talent is only a starting point.

Diligence does not work if there is a lack of innate talent.

I have to make my drawing right so that my drawing will be right.

A good Technician was rarely wrong. A top Technician was never wrong.

Los budistas dicen que la vida es un río, que navegamos en una balsa hacia el destino final. El río tiene su corriente, velocidad, escollos, remolinos y otros obstáculos que no podemos controlar, pero contamos con un remo para dirigir la embarcación sobre el agua. De nuestra destreza depende la calidad del viaje.

Writing is like riding a bicycle: you don't forget how, even if you go for years without doing it.

Escapar ileso en un combate es cuestión de suerte, hasta el más experto puede perecer por una bala perdida.

tallados con hacha, las tejuelas «de cabeza circular», muy

maestro, an honorary title equivalent to licenciado, our designation for almost anyone who has graduated from college. With pliers and some wire, this fellow can fix anything from a lavatory to an airplane turbine: his creativity and daring are boundless.

My grandfather was an exception among Chileans because no man from the middle class up knows how to decipher a manual, nor does he dirty his hands with motor oil—that's what maestros are for; they can improvise ingenious solutions with the most modest resources and a minimum of fuss.

The thing about Led Zeppelin was that it was always four musicians at the top of their game, but they could play like a band.

So much of the time people focus on the awesome power of Led Zeppelin, the whole 'Hammer of the Gods' thing, but John Paul Jones, probably because he was a session player, he put a lot of thought into his playing. He didn't just lumber through.

I can play in many sorts of categories because we've seen that with Led Zeppelin, all the acoustic stuff, and this, that and the other.

I don't think there are any easy Led Zeppelin songs.

I think that my performances with Led Zeppelin got better with each performance and I think that our performances as Led Zeppelin Experience have also gotten better with each show.