Quotes About Talent

There are two kinds of talent, man-made talent and God-given talent.  With man-made talent you have to work very hard.  With God-given talent, you just touch it up once in a while.

— Pearl Bailey

Talent wins out.

— Althea Gibson Darben

Keep your talent in the dark and you’ll never be insulted.

— Elsa Maxwell

A man possesses talent; genius possesses the man.

— Isaac Stern

Anything you’re good at contributes to happiness.

— Bertrand Russell

There is no such thing as a great talent without great will power.

— Honoré de Balzac

An unfulfilled vocation drains the color from a man’s entire existence.

— Honoré de Balzac

I have always thought that the surest proof of talent is its condescension to genius.

— Vincent Sheehan

I began to ration my writing, for fear I would dream through life as my father had done.  I was afraid I had inherited a poisoned gene from him, a vocation without a gift.

— Mavis Gallant

Nothing I do can’t be done by a ten-year-old . . . with fifteen years of practice.

— Harry Blackstone, Jr., on being a magician

There is no substitute for talent.  Industry and all the virtues are of no avail.

— Aldous Huxley

Whom the gods wish to destroy they first call promising.

— Cyril Connolly

I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered together at the White House—with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.

— John F. Kennedy

Neither cast ye your pearls before swine.

— Matthew 7:6

After my screen test, the director clapped his hands gleefully and yelled, “She can’t talk!  She can’t act!  She’s sensational!”

— Ava Gardner

We’ve all been blessed with God-given talents.  Mine just happens to be beating people up.

— Sugar Ray Leonard

Hard work without talent is a shame, but talent without hard work is a tragedy.

— Robert Half