“For neither talent without instruction nor instruction without talent can produce the perfect craftsman.”

Book II, Chapter V; translation by Andrew P. Peabody
Tusculanae Disputationes – Tusculan Disputations (45 BC)
Context: A: For what stronger proof can there be of its [philosophy's] uselessness than that some accomplished philosophers lead disgraceful lives?
M: It is no proof at all; for as all cultivated fields are not harvest-yielding [... ] so all cultivated minds do not bear fruit. To continue the figure – as a field, though fertile, cannot yield a harvest without cultivation, no more can the mind without learning; thus each is feeble without the other. But philosophy is the cultivation of the soul. It draws out vices by the root, prepares the mind to receive seed, and commits to it, and, so to speak, sows in it what, when grown, may bear the most abundant fruit.

5
tr. George Long (1888)
The Enchiridion (c. 135)

Il Re senza lettere era come un Asino coronato.
Della Prudenza et Dottrina del Re. p. 25.
Translation reported in Harbottle's Dictionary of quotations French and Italian (1904), p. 320.

[3] Metaphor, 3.12. Conclusions
Semiotics and the Philosophy of Language (1984)
Context: No algorithm exists for the metaphor, nor can a metaphor be produced by means of a computer's precise instructions, no matter what the volume of organized information to be fed in. The success of a metaphor is a function of the sociocultural format of the interpreting subjects' encyclopedia. In this perspective, metaphors are produced solely on the basis of a rich cultural framework, on the basis, that is, of a universe of content that is already organized into networks of interpretants, which decide (semiotically) the identities and differences of properties. At the same time, content universe, whose format postulates itself not as rigidly hierarchized but, rather, according to Model Q, alone derives from the metaphorical production and interpretation the opportunity to restructure itself into new nodes of similarity and dissimilarity.

Section 77
Reflections on the Human Condition (1973)
Context: They who lack talent expect things to happen without effort. They ascribe failure to a lack of inspiration or ability, or to misfortune, rather than to insufficient application. At the core of every true talent there is an awareness of the difficulties inherent in any achievement, and the confidence that by persistence and patience something worthwhile will be realized. Thus talent is a species of vigor.

To keep silently in mind what one has seen and heard, to study hard and never feel contented, to teach others tirelessly; have I done (all of) these things?
Source: The Analects, Other chapters

Source: Silas Marner

2.
The Law