“He had talents equal to business, and aspired no higher.”

—  Tacitus , book Annals

Book VI, 39
Annals (117)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Sept. 27, 2023. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "He had talents equal to business, and aspired no higher." by Tacitus?
Tacitus photo
Tacitus 42
Roman senator and historian 54–120

Related quotes

Ruth Bader Ginsburg photo

“Neither federal nor state government acts compatibly with equal protection when a law or official policy denies to women, simply because they are women, full citizenship stature - equal opportunity to aspire, achieve, participate in and contribute to society based on their individual talents and capacities.”

Ruth Bader Ginsburg (1933) Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

Writing for the court, United States v. Virginia, 518 U.S. 515 (1996)

John F. Kennedy photo

“Not every child has an equal talent or an equal ability or equal motivation, but they should have the equal right to develop their talent and their ability and their motivation, to make something of themselves.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America
Arthur Conan Doyle photo

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

Arthur Conan Doyle book The Valley of Fear

Source: The Valley of Fear

Robert A. Heinlein photo

“Narby had no particular respect for engineers, largely because he had no particular talent for engineering.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Elsewhen

Elsewhen (p. 182)
Short fiction, Off the Main Sequence (2005)

John F. Kennedy photo

“This is one country. It has become one country because all of us and all the people who came here had an equal chance to develop their talents.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

1963, Civil Rights Address
Context: This is one country. It has become one country because all of us and all the people who came here had an equal chance to develop their talents. We cannot say to 10 percent of the population that you can't have that right; that your children can't have the chance to develop whatever talents they have; that the only way that they are going to get their rights is to go into the streets and demonstrate. I think we owe them and we owe ourselves a better country than that. Therefore, I am asking for your help in making it easier for us to move ahead and to provide the kind of equality of treatment which we would want ourselves; to give a chance for every child to be educated to the limit of his talents. As I have said before, not every child has an equal talent or an equal ability or an equal motivation, but they should have the equal right to develop their talent and their ability and their motivation, to make something of themselves.

“What is clear is that a French aspiration for equality and a German expectation of hegemony are not consistent.”

Martin Feldstein (1939–2019) American economist

"EMU and international conflict", 1997

Benjamin Graham photo

“The Reservoir system will function not only as an equalizer of business conditions, but also as a national store to meet further emergencies, such as war and drought, and-most important of all-as the concrete means of developing a steadily higher living standard for all.”

Benjamin Graham (1894–1976) American investor

Part II, Chapter IV, A Plan For Conserving Surplus, p. 50
Storage and Stability (1937)

Gilles Villeneuve photo

“It was terrible when Gilles died. I cried that day and the next one too, even though I had to race… …and I remember the feeling that we were all starting equal, from now. Villeneuve was gone. We all knew he had talent beyond our reach.”

Gilles Villeneuve (1950–1982) Canadian racecar driver

René Arnoux, Formula one driver

Allen C. Guelzo photo

“To Lincoln, slavery undercut the free labor outlook on the world because it denied advancement and self-improvement. For Lincoln, the great attraction of any economic regime was the degree to which it permitted accumulation and self-promotion. He once described the ideal system as being one where the penniless beginner starts out working for somebody else, accumulates capital on his own by dint of savings, goes into business for himself, and then eventually becomes so successful that he hires others, who in turn continue the cycle. And he spoke of that as being the order of things in a society of equals. For him, the very notion of equality is a matter of equality of openness, aspiration, and opportunity.”

Allen C. Guelzo (1953) American historian

2010s, Interview with Tom Mackaman (2013)

“No one, in the year 1770, was better fitted than Samuel Adams, either by talent and temperament or the circumstances of his position, to push the continent into a rebellion. Unlike most of his patriot friends, he had neither private business nor private profession to fall back upon when public affairs grew tame, his only business being, as one might say, the public business, his only profession the definition and defense of popular rights. …the serious business of a man who during ten years had abandoned all private pursuits and had embraced poverty to become a tribune of the people.”

Carl L. Becker (1873–1945) American historian

The Eve of the Revolution (1918)

Related topics