talents Quotes

“No matter how bright your star became, I never cared about the music half as much as I cared about you as a daughter... I want you to know that.”

“Perhaps my only real expertise, my only talent, is to endure beyond the endurable.”

“Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself; but talent instantly recognizes genius.”

“Well, God give them wisdom that have it. And those that are fools, let them use their talents.”

“I began feeling the way I imagine an actor or athlete must feel when, after years of commitment to a particular dream...he realizes that he’s gone just about as far as talent or fortune will take him. The dream will not happen, and he now faces the choice of accepting this fact like a grownup and moving on to more sensible pursuits, or refusing the truth and ending up bitter, quarrelsome, and slightly pathetic. ”

“Then having lighted his pipe he took out his watch. He looked at it attentively; he made, perhaps, some mathematical calculation. At last he said, triumphantly: ‘Well done!’ James had steered them like a born sailor.”

“The truth was, I could no sooner quit cello cold turkey than I could stop breathing.”

“Our gifts and talents should also be turned over to Him [God].

“In most cases being a good boss means hiring talented people and then getting out of their way.”

“We can’t take any credit for our talents. It’s how we use them that counts.”

“Talent is its own expectation, Jim: you either live up to it or it waves a hankie, receding forever.”

“Achievement is talent plus preparation.”

“The greats never stop learning. Instinct and talent without technique just makes you reckless, like a teenager driving a powerful, high-performance vehicle.”

“Instinct is raw clay that can be shaped into a masterpiece, if you develop skills that match your talent. That can only come from learning everything there is to know about what you do.”

“Her gifts were mixed with good and evil both.”

“Whatever God has placed within you that could ever be described as great was never meant for you, anyway. It’s a stewardship that has been given to you. Greatness never belongs to the one who carries it; it belongs to the world that needs it.”

“...as much as talent counts, effort counts twice.”

“In the most general sense, talent is the sum of a person’s abilities—his or her intrinsic gifts, skills, knowledge, experience, intelligence, judgment, attitude, character, and drive. It also includes his or her ability to learn and grow.”

“Our potential is one thing. What we do with it is quite another.”

“Without effort, your talent is nothing more than your unmet potential. Without effort, your skill is nothing more than what you could have done but didn’t. With effort, talent becomes skill and, at the very same time, effort makes skill productive.”

“Their goal wasn’t to stand out because of their differences; it was to fit in because of their talent.”

“Each of us should be allowed to rise as far as our talent and hard work can take us.”

“Here’s the thing: I’m ridiculously smart, and I’m pretty sure I have a photographic memory. It’s like I have a camera in my head, and if I see or hear something, I click it, and it stays.”

“She’ll be struck by my good looks and charm and musical talent . . . Then she’ll give in and dance with me and follow me up to New York after graduation, to be my groupie.”

“I had a natural talent for selling to people, but without knowledge and resources, where was that going to get me? People always lecture the poor: ‘Take responsibility for yourself! Make something of yourself!’ But with what raw materials are the poor to make something of themselves?”

“His talent was as natural as the pattern ... made by ... dust on a butterfly’s wings.”

“I wish I were popular and beautiful and wealthy and talented.”

“All of your precious resources—time, energy, talent, passion, money—should only go to the buds of your life or your business that are the best, are fixable, and are indispensable. Otherwise, average sets in…”

“Sometimes she wished her father had started her on the electric guitar. Or at the very least, singing lessons. What was she supposed to do with an ability to play the piano?”

“I think [Steve’s] an outstanding young man. He is talented, bright, and compassionate. He’s very much involved with depicting his neighborhood and environment in a positive manner.”

“I think we’ve outgrown full-time education ... Time to test our talents in the real world, d’you reckon?”

“It is happy for you that you possess the talent of flattering with delicacy. May I ask whether these pleasing attentions proceed from the impulse of the moment, or are the result of previous study?”

″[N]othing is fun until you’re good at it.”

Pursue the things you love doing, and then do them so well that people can’t take their eyes off you.

“Being an annoyance is something that I am very good at. In fact, I’m far more than just a ‘mild’ annoyance--people tell me I can be downright frustrating. Might as well use this talent for the cause of good, eh?”

“If you do something too good, then, after a while, if you don’t watch it, you start showing off. And then you’re not as good any more.”

“Loving you was the last thing I felt really good at.”

“That other people can often see things about you that you yourself cannot see, even if those people are stupid.”

“I believe that we are called by God to be the very best stewards of al the gifts, talents, and opportunities entrusted to us in this lifetime. The result is true prosperity, real success.”

″‘Having adventures comes natural to some people’, said Anne serenely. ‘You just have a gift for them or you haven’t.‘”

“It is beyond belief what Bojangles does, which is why Elisa is ashamed to feel a burst of ego: She could have kept pace with him better than Shirley Temple, if only the world into which she’d been born had been wholly different.”

“Too many people are living far below their potential. They have more gifts and talents, and so much more going for them.”

“It’s like, I began as a lab assistant, right? Was a good job. Real good job. So, what I did, I quit to become a comedian. I was so sure, so sure I had talent.”

“She is very good at wearing people out.”

“James was everything I desperately wanted to be and never could: talented, intelligent, worldly.”

“Your outside is all that’s worth while, while I, for all my plain and humble garb, can sing with such sweet melody...”

“That which each can do best, none but his Maker can teach him.”

“This was how mortal found fame, I thought. Through practice and diligence, tending their skills like garden until they glowed beneath the sun.”

“Gods are born of ichor and nectar, their excellences already bursting from their fingertips. So they find their fame by proving what they can mar: destroying cities, starting wars, breeding plagues and monsters. All that smoke and savor rising so delicately from our altars. It leaves only ash behind.”

“We Earth Men have a talent for ruining big, beautiful things.”

“It’s bad enough that I’m the darkest, worst-dressed thing in school. I’m also the tallest, skinniest thing you ever seen. And people like John-John remind me of it every chance they get. They don’t say nothing about the fact that I’m a math whiz, and can outdo ninth graders when it comes to figuring numbers. Or that I got a good memory and never forget one single, solitary thing I read. They only see what they see, and they don’t seem to like what they see much.”