The Best Quotes About Talent

Updated June 14, 2019 640 votes 285 voters 43.5k views

List RulesMust be a famous or well-known quote. Vote for the talent sayings that strongly resonate with you, and downvote any you didn't like.

A list of the best talent quotes and sayings, including the names of each speaker or author when available. This list is sorted by popularity, so only the most famous talent quotes are at the top. The authors of these historic talent quotes are displayed next to each quote, so if you see one you like be sure to check out other inspirational talent quotes from that same writer.

This list answers the questions, "What are the best quotes about talent?" and "What are inspirational talent quotes?"

This list includes notable talent quotes by various authors, writers, playwrights, speakers, politicians, athletes, poets, and more. Vote on your favorites so that the greatest talent quotes rise to the top, as the order of the list changes dynamically based on votes. Don't let your favorite talent sayings get to the bottom of the list.

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28
12
Everyone has talent. What is rare is the courage to follow the talent to the dark place where it leads.
Erica Jong
2
37
27
A really great talent finds its happiness in execution.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
3
34
28
Your talent is God's gift to you; what you do with it is your gift to God.
Leo Buscaglia
4
22
17
When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left and could say, I used everything you gave me..
Erma Bombeck
5
21
16
Use what talents you possess; the woods would be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sang best.
Henry van Dyke
6
8
1
Talents go by nature not by birth.
Frederick II of Prussia
7
7
2
Whom the gods wish to destroy they first call promising.
Cyril Connolly
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10
7
Ordinary people think that talent must be always on its own level and that it arises every morning like the sun, rested and refreshed, ready to draw from the same storehouse -- always open, always full, always abundant -- new treasures that it will heap up on those of the day before; such people are unaware that, as in the case of all mortal things, talent has its increase and decrease, and that independently of the career it takes, like everything that breathes... it undergoes all the accidents of health, of sickness, and of the dispositions of the soul -- its gaiety or its sadness. As with our perishable flesh. talent is obliged constantly to keep guard over itself, to combat, and to keep perpetually on the alert amid the obstacles that witness the exercise of its singular power.
Eugène Delacroix
9
6
1
It takes little talent to see clearly what lies under one's nose, a good deal of it to know in which direction to point that organ.
W. H. Auden
10
8
5
The most gifted natures are perhaps also the most trembling.
André Gide
11
9
7
This is how I define talent; it is a gift that God has given us in secret, which we reveal without knowing it.
Montesquieu
12
7
4
Talent for talent's sake is a bauble and a show. Talent working with joy in the cause of universal truth lifts the possessor to new power as a benefactor.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
13
8
5
It is a happy talent to know how to play.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

14
5
2
A man with a talent does what is expected of him, makes his way, constructs, is an engineer, a composer, a builder of bridges. It's the natural order of things that he construct objects outside himself and his family. The woman who does so is aberrant. We have to expiate for this cursed talent someone handed out to us, by mistake, in the black mystery of genetics.
May Sarton
15
6
4
There is no substitute for talent. Industry and all the virtues are of no avail.
Aldous Huxley
16
4
2
"A man sitting monkey-like on the rooftop of his brain is due the applause such feats earn him. "
Aberjhani
17
14
17
Talent alone cannot make a writer. There must be a man behind the book; a personality which, by birth and quality, is pledged to the doctrines there set forth, and which exists to see and state things so, and not otherwise.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
18
4
2
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
19
4
0
Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself, but talent instantly recognizes genius.
Arthur Conan Doyle
20
4
2
Every man has his own vocation, talent is the call.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
21
2
0
A man gift will make a way for him.
22
2
0
No one respects a talent that is concealed.
Desiderius Erasmus
23
4
4
Talent is a matter of quantity. Talent does not write on page, it writes three hundred.
Jules Renard

24
2
0
Talent develops in quiet places, character in the full current of human life.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
25
3
2
Talent is nothing but a prolonged period of attention and a shortened period of mental assimilation.
Constantin Stanislavski

Everyone has talent. What is rare is the courage to follow the talent to the dark place where it leads.

A really great talent finds its happiness in execution.

Your talent is God's gift to you; what you do with it is your gift to God.

When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left and could say, I used everything you gave me..

Use what talents you possess; the woods would be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sang best.

Talents go by nature not by birth.

Whom the gods wish to destroy they first call promising.

It takes little talent to see clearly what lies under one's nose, a good deal of it to know in which direction to point that organ.

The most gifted natures are perhaps also the most trembling.

This is how I define talent; it is a gift that God has given us in secret, which we reveal without knowing it.

Talent for talent's sake is a bauble and a show. Talent working with joy in the cause of universal truth lifts the possessor to new power as a benefactor.

It is a happy talent to know how to play.

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

"A man sitting monkey-like on the rooftop of his brain is due the applause such feats earn him. "

Talent alone cannot make a writer. There must be a man behind the book; a personality which, by birth and quality, is pledged to the doctrines there set forth, and which exists to see and state things so, and not otherwise.

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.

Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself, but talent instantly recognizes genius.

Every man has his own vocation, talent is the call.

A man gift will make a way for him.

No one respects a talent that is concealed.

Talent is a matter of quantity. Talent does not write on page, it writes three hundred.

Talent develops in quiet places, character in the full current of human life.

Talent is nothing but a prolonged period of attention and a shortened period of mental assimilation.