Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work.
—Stephen King (b.1947) American Novelist, Short-Story Writer, Screenwriter, Columnist, Film Director
I put all my genius into my life; I put only my talent into my works.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
Getting ahead in a difficult profession — singing, acting, writing, whatever — requires avid faith in yourself. You must be able to sustain yourself against staggering blows and unfair reversals. When I think back to those first couple of years in Rome, those endless rejections, without a glimmer of encouragement from anyone, all those failed screen tests, and yet I never let my desire slide away from me, my belief in myself and what I felt I could achieve
—Sophia Loren (b.1934) Italian Actor
Talent does you no good unless it’s recognized by someone else.
—Robert Half
Talent is God given. Be humble. Fame is man-given. Be grateful. Conceit is self-given. Be careful.
—John Wooden (1910–2010) American Sportsperson
Skill is the unified force of experience, intellect and passion in their operation.
—John Ruskin (1819–1900) English Writer, Art Critic
Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence wins championships.
—Michael Jordan (b.1963) American Sportsperson, Businessperson
Good pitching will always stop good hitting and vice-versa.
—Casey Stengel (1890–1975) American Sportsperson
Talent isn’t genius, and no amount of energy can make it so. I want to be great, or nothing. I won’t be a commonplace dauber, so I don’t intend to try any more.
—Louisa May Alcott (1832–88) American Novelist
I like living. I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly, acutely miserable, racked with sorrow, but through it all I still know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand thing.
—Agatha Christie (1890–1976) British Novelist, Short-Story Writer, Playwright
Use what talents you possess: the woods would be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sang best.
—Henry van Dyke Jr. (1852–1933) American Author, Educator, Clergyman
Interest is the spur of the people, but glory that of great souls. Invention is the talent of youth, and judgment of age.
—Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) Irish Satirist
The best players in any high-stakes field – business, entertainment, law, surgery, as well as sport – recognize that pressure occurs at the moments when meaningful accomplishment is possible. In fact, that is the reason why performers perform: for the opportunity to tackle challenges head on, to do something significant, to demonstrate what their hard work and talent can produce.
—John Eliot (b.1971) American Psychologist, Academic
Talent is commonly developed at the expense of character.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
Talent? What is talent but the ability to get away with something?
—Tennessee Williams (1911–83) American Playwright
Talents go by nature not by birth.
—Frederick II of Prussia (1712–86) Prussian Monarch
A talent somewhat above mediocrity, shrewd and not too sensitive, is more likely to rise in the world than genius.
—Charles Cooley (1864–1929) American Sociologist
This is how I define talent; it is a gift that God has given us in secret, which we reveal without knowing it.
—Montesquieu (1689–1755) French Political Philosopher, Jurist
No one respects a talent that is concealed.
—Desiderius Erasmus (c.1469–1536) Dutch Humanist, Scholar
Talent is an amalgam of high sensitivity; easy vulnerability; high sensory equipment (seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, tasting—intensely); a vivid imagination as well as a grip on reality; the desire to communicate one’s own experience and sensations, to make one’s self heard and seen.
—Uta Hagen (1919–2004) German-American Actress
Genius is the gold in the mine; talent is the miner who works and brings it out.
—Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of Blessington (1789–1849) Irish Novelist, Writer
I believe talent is like electricity. We don’t understand electricity. We use it. You can plug into it and light up a lamp, keep a heart pump going, light a cathedral, or you can electrocute a person with it. Electricity will do all that.
—Maya Angelou (1928–2014) American Poet
Each man has his own vocation. The talent is the call. There is one direction in which all space is open to him. He has faculties silently inviting him thither to endless exertion. He is like a ship in a river; he runs against obstructions on every side but one; on that side all obstruction is taken away, and he sweeps serenely over a deepening channel into an infinite sea. This talent and this call depend on his organization, or the mode in which the general soul incarnates itself in him. He inclines to do something which is easy to him, and good when it is done, but which no other man can do. He has no rival. For the more truly he consults his own powers, the more difference will his work exhibit from the work of any other. His ambition is exactly proportioned to his powers. The height of the pinnacle is determined by the breadth of the base. Every man has this call of the power to do somewhat unique, and no man has any other call. The pretence that he has another call, a summons by name and personal election and outward “signs that mark him extraordinary, and not in the roll of common men,” is fanaticism, and betrays obtuseness to perceive that there is one mind in all the individuals, and no respect of persons therein.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
Technique is noticed most markedly in the case of those who have not mastered it.
—Leon Trotsky (1879–1940) Russian Marxist Revolutionary
There is no substitute for talent. Industry and all the virtues are of no avail.
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) English Humanist, Pacifist, Essayist, Short Story Writer, Satirist
The buried talent is the sunken rock on which most lives strike and founder.
—Frederick William Faber (1814–63) British Hymn Writer, Theologian
All of us do not have equal talents, but all of us should have an equal opportunity to develop our talents
—John F. Kennedy (1917–63) American Head of State, Journalist
He had a lot of talent, but didn’t have much dedication, wasn’t organized, didn’t know how to learn, didn’t know how to comprehend what he was doing, didn’t try to learn how to get better.
—Jack Nicklaus (b.1940) American Sportsperson
Talent, lying in the understanding, is often inherited; genius, being the action of reason and imagination, rarely or never.
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) English Poet, Literary Critic, Philosopher
Those who are blessed with the most talent don’t necessarily outperform everyone else. It’s the people with follow-through who excel.
—Mary Kay Ash (1918–2001) American Entrepreneur, Businessperson