Quotes about talent

"Talent was not rare; the ability to survive having it was."

Skills can be taught. Character you either have or you don't have.

Abilities wither under criticism, they blossom under encouragement.

A society that put more emphasis on birth than ability was likely to breed ability out of its ruling class.

Of him to whom less is given, less will be required, but our utmost exertions are required of us all.

All our talents increase in the using, and every faculty, both good and bad, strengthens by exercise: therefore, if you choose to use the bad, or those which tend to evil, till they become your masters, and neglect the good till they dwindle away, you have only yourself to blame.

Such humble talents as God had given me I will endeavour to put to their greatest use; if I am able to amuse I will try to benefit too; and when I feel it my duty to speak an unpalatable truth, with the help of God, I will speak it, though it be to the prejudice of my name and to the detriment of my readers immediate pleasure as well as my own.

Do you see that apple tree? It is broken by the weight and abundance of its own fruit. True emblem of a genius.

"Eccentricities of genius, Sam," said Mr. Pickwick. "You may retire."

In one African myth the word for God is even identical with skill and capacity. The Godhead is defined as that thing which appears in man as the mystery of an unusual skill or capacity. It is something divine, a spark of the divinity in him, not his own possession or achievement, but a miracle.

Cooking is revelation and creation; and a woman can find special satisfaction in a successful cake or a flaky pastry, for not every one can do it: one must have the gift.

One is not born a genius, one becomes a genius; and the feminine situation has up to the present rendered this becoming practically impossible.