Quotes about talent
page 10

“The future of any country which is dependent upon the will and wisdom of its citizens is damaged, and irreparably damaged, whenever any of its children is not educated to the full extent of his talent, from grade school through graduate school.”

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

1963, Third State of the Union Address

Wisdom, Children, Education, Future

“We have no aristocracy but of virtue and talent, which is the only true aristocracy, and is the old and true meaning of the term.”

Thomas D'Arcy McGee (1825–1868) Canadian politician

Legislative Assembly, February 9, 1865
Context: This is a new land - a land of pretension because it is new; because classes and systems have not had that time to grow here naturally. We have no aristocracy but of virtue and talent, which is the only true aristocracy, and is the old and true meaning of the term. (Hear, hear.)

“Many questions haven't been answered as yet. Our poets may be wrong; but what can any of us do with his talent but try to develop his vision, so that through frequent failures we may learn better what we have missed in the past.”

William Carlos Williams (1883–1963) American poet

Interview with Stanley Koehler (April 1962), in The Paris Review : Writers at Work, 3rd series, Viking Penguin, p. 29
General sources
Context: The art of the poem nowadays is something unstable; but at least the construction of the poem should make sense; you should know where you stand. Many questions haven't been answered as yet. Our poets may be wrong; but what can any of us do with his talent but try to develop his vision, so that through frequent failures we may learn better what we have missed in the past.

Failure, Question, Learning, Past

“Characters and talents are complemental and suppletory. The world stands by balanced antagonisms.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

The Natural History of Intellect (1893)
Context: Characters and talents are complemental and suppletory. The world stands by balanced antagonisms. The more the peculiarities are pressed the better the result. The air would rot without lightning; and without the violence of direction that men have, without bigots, without men of fixed idea, no excitement, no efficiency.
The novelist should not make any character act absurdly, but only absurdly as seen by others. For it is so in life. Nonsense will not keep its unreason if you come into the humorist's point of view, but unhappily we find it is fast becoming sense, and we must flee again into the distance if we would laugh.

World

“Now it is time to take longer strides — time for a great new American enterprise — time for this nation to take a clearly leading role in space achievement, which in many ways may hold the key to our future on earth. I believe we possess all the resources and talents necessary.”

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

1961, Speech to Special Joint Session of Congress
Context: Finally, if we are to win the battle that is now going on around the world between freedom and tyranny, the dramatic achievements in space which occurred in recent weeks should have made clear to us all, as did the Sputnik in 1957, the impact of this adventure on the minds of men everywhere, who are attempting to make a determination of which road they should take. […] Now it is time to take longer strides — time for a great new American enterprise — time for this nation to take a clearly leading role in space achievement, which in many ways may hold the key to our future on earth. I believe we possess all the resources and talents necessary. But the facts of the matter are that we have never made the national decisions or marshaled the national resources required for such leadership. We have never specified long-range goals on an urgent time schedule, or managed our resources and our time so as to insure theft fulfillment. Recognizing the head start obtained by the Soviets with their large rocket engines, which gives them many months of lead-time, and recognizing the likelihood that they will exploit this lead for some time to come in still more impressive successes, we nevertheless are required to make new efforts on our own. For while we cannot guarantee that we shall one day be first, we can guarantee that any failure to make this effort will make us last. We take an additional risk by making it in full view of the world, but as shown by feat of astronaut Shepard, this very risk enhances our stature when we are successful. But this is not merely a race. Space is open to us now; and our eagerness to share its meaning is not governed by the efforts of others. We go into space because whatever mankind must undertake, free men must fully share.

Way, Time, Future

“The College’s breadth and depth of talent and its very history were impressive.”

Kenneth Chenault (1951) American business executive

A Principled Leader (2004)
Context: I found that Bowdoin had some exceptional black graduates. It was incredible reading about their trials and tribulations and successes coming into an environment that was sometimes hostile, or at the very least mixed in its reception. I also learned that there were a few people in the local community and faculty members who played important roles for these individuals. Writing that paper gave me a sense of awe at the level of talent that had come to Bowdoin over the years.
You asked me how I ended up at Bowdoin. Frankly it is far more interesting to find out how these people wound up at Bowdoin and what sustained them, what got them through. What Bowdoin can be, and should be proud of, is that it had some incredibly illustrious and impressive blacks who went there during some very challenging times. … The College’s breadth and depth of talent and its very history were impressive. Also, the fact that the Afro-Am was a site for the Underground Railroad was very poignant and very meaningful to me.

History

“Talent is a gift that brings with it an obligation to serve the world, and not ourselves, for it is not of our making.”

José Martí (1853–1895) Poet, writer, Cuban nationalist leader

Martí : Thoughts/Pensamientos (1994)
Context: Talent is a gift that brings with it an obligation to serve the world, and not ourselves, for it is not of our making. To use for our exclusive benefit what is not ours is theft. Culture, which makes talent shine, is not completely ours either, nor can we place it solely at our disposal. Rather, it belongs mainly to our country, which gave it to us, and to humanity, from which we receive it as a birthright. A selfish man is a thief.

World

“I happen to have a talent for allocating capital. But my ability to use that talent is completely dependent on the society I was born into.”

Warren Buffett (1930) American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist

To Barack Obama, as quoted in The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream (2006), Ch. 5
Context: I happen to have a talent for allocating capital. But my ability to use that talent is completely dependent on the society I was born into. If I’d been born into a tribe of hunters, this talent of mine would be pretty worthless. I can’t run very fast. I’m not particularly strong. I’d probably end up as some wild animal’s dinner.
But I was lucky enough to be born in a time and place where society values my talent, and gave me a good education to develop that talent, and set up the laws and the financial system to let me do what I love doing — and make a lot of money doing it. The least I can do is help pay for all that.

Dependency

“Imagine what might be accomplished if this talent and energy were turned to philosophy, to theology, to the arts, to imaginative literature or to education?”

Neil Postman (1931–2003) American writer and academic

Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business (1985)
Context: In a world populated by people who believe that through more and more information, paradise is attainable, the computer scientist is king. But I maintain that all of this is a monumental and dangerous waste of human talent and energy. Imagine what might be accomplished if this talent and energy were turned to philosophy, to theology, to the arts, to imaginative literature or to education? Who knows what we could learn from such people — perhaps why there are wars, and hunger, and homelessness and mental illness and anger.

Education, Art, Imagination, Literature

“Talent works for money and fame; the motive which moves genius to productivity is, on the other hand, less easy to determine.”

Arthur Schopenhauer book Parerga and Paralipomena

Vol. 2 "On Philosophy and the Intellect" as translated in Essays and Aphorisms (1970), as translated by R. J. Hollingdale
Parerga and Paralipomena (1851), Counsels and Maxims
Context: Talent works for money and fame; the motive which moves genius to productivity is, on the other hand, less easy to determine. It isn’t money, for genius seldom gets any. It isn’t fame: fame is too uncertain and, more closely considered, of too little worth. Nor is it strictly for its own pleasure, for the great exertion involved almost outweighs the pleasure. It is rather an instinct of a unique sort by virtue of which the individual possessed of genius is impelled to express what he has seen and felt in enduring works without being conscious of any further motivation. It takes place, by and large, with the same sort of necessity as a tree brings forth fruit, and demands of the world no more than a soil on which the individual can flourish.

Money, Motivation

“It had people from all over the country and the world. The great thing about Bombay as a city was it was a magnet for anybody with talent, or ambition or hunger, or beauty, or intelligence.”

Jeet Thayil (1959) Indian writer

On the variety of characters portrayed in his Narcopolis.
Jeet Thayil on why 'Where are you from?' is a complicated question for all of us
Context: It had people from all over the country and the world. The great thing about Bombay as a city was it was a magnet for anybody with talent, or ambition or hunger, or beauty, or intelligence. If you had any of these things and you wanted to make something of yourself, you went to Bombay and the city would reward you. I think all of that changed in 1992, when the last big riots happened in Bombay between Hindus and Muslims. Now when I go back to the city and I look at it, I can see the kind of profound impact that those riots had, and how it's changed the character of the city, and in such a profound way that I don't think it will ever change back to what it was before '92.

Hunger, People, World, Beauty

“First job in acting - …acting is not just talent there's a lot of technicality. You have to see that this is the focus points that's the light, you have to catch the light, you have to give your facing. So all these things I just learnt them, and I grew with every film.”

Preity Zinta (1975) film actress

Career

Light

“Because no single person or family has a monopoly over the talent, intelligence, skill, and good intentions for our country”

Francis Escudero (1969) Filipino politician

2015, Speech: Declaration as Vice Presidential Candidate
Context: I believe that every Filipino—rich or poor, young or old, man or woman, educated or not, good-looking or not, pedigreed or not, whether they live in Makati or in the provinces — has the ability, capacity, and right to devote his or her life to serving our country. Because no single person or family has a monopoly over the talent, intelligence, skill, and good intentions for our country.

Family, Intelligence, Personality, Country

“The superior man has three things in which he delights, and to be ruler over the kingdom is not one of them. That his father and mother are both alive, and that the condition of his brothers affords no cause for anxiety;—this is one delight. That, when looking up, he has no occasion for shame before Heaven, and, below, he has no occasion to blush before men;—this is a second delight. That he can get from the whole kingdom the most talented individuals, and teach and nourish them;—this is the third delight.”

Mencius (-372–-289 BC) Chinese philosopher

7A:20, as translated by James Legge in The Chinese Classics, Vol. II (1861), p. 335
The Mencius

Men

“I respect her talent and her brain and who she is as a person — and that kind of admiration and respect is a big factor in binding someone in a relationship.”

Lily Tomlin (1939) American actress, comedian, writer, and producer

Metro Weekly interview (2006)
Context: I respect her talent and her brain and who she is as a person — and that kind of admiration and respect is a big factor in binding someone in a relationship. I know what a good heart she has, and how empathetic she is with all kinds of people and issues — she's so brilliant on top of it that she can voice these things. And she's as funny as she can possibly be. She makes me laugh.

Personality

“I started my Love Class as a result of the suicide of one of my most talented students. She showed no sign of her despair. Then one day she took her life. I had to ask, "What's the good of all our learning, knowing how to read and write and spell if no one ever teaches us the value of life, of our uniqueness, and personal dignity?"”

Leo Buscaglia (1924–1998) Motivational speaker, writer

So I started my Love Class. I taught it free of salary and tuition just so students could have a forum to consider the truly essential things. I really didn't "teach" the class. I facilitated it — helping the students to discover their own magic.
A Magazine of People and Possibilities interview (1998)

Love, Life, Suicide, Learning

“My big ears indicated a talent for music. This thrilled me.”

W. C. Handy (1873–1958) American blues composer and musician

Music

“Hide not your talents, they for use were made. What's a sun-dial in the shade? ”

Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790) American author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, inventor, civic activist, …

Sun

“Our legislators have not yet learned the comparative value of free-trade and of freedom, of union, and of rectitude, to a nation. They have no genius or talent for comparatively humble questions of taxation and finance, commerce and manufacturers and agriculture. ”

Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) 1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitionist

Question, Freedom, Learning

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

Генри Ван-Дайк (1852–1933)

Bird, Wise, Beauty, Peaceful

“I don’t believe there is such a thing as a ‘born’ soccer player. Perhaps you are born with certain skills and talents, but quite frankly it seems impossible to me that one is actually born to be an ace soccer player.”

Pelé (1940–2022) Brazilian association football player

“Brazil’s always had great players, both at home and abroad, but we need to put all that talent together and mould a team out of it.”

Pelé (1940–2022) Brazilian association football player

Home

“Getting ahead in a difficult profession requires avid faith in yourself. That is why some people with mediocre talent, but with great inner drive, go so much further than people with vastly superior talent.”

Sophia Loren (1934) Italian actress

People, Faith

“There is a fountain of youth: it is your mind, your talents, the creativity you bring to your life and the lives of people you love. When you learn to tap this source, you will truly have defeated age.”

Sophia Loren (1934) Italian actress

Love, Life, People, Youth

“No matter how rich, talented or intelligent you are… how you treat animals tells me all I need to know about you.”

Ralph Smart

Intelligence, Animals

“At the same time that I think discretion the most useful talent a man can be master of, I look upon cunning to be the accomplishment of little, mean, ungenerous minds. Discretion points out the noblest ends to us, and pursues the most proper and laudable methods of attaining them: cunning has only private selfish aims, and sticks at nothing which may make them succeed. Discretion has large and extended views, and, like a well-formed eye, commands a whole horizon: cunning is a kind of short-sightedness, that discovers the minutest objects which are near at hand, but is not able to discern things at a distance. Discretion the more it is discovered, gives a greater authority to the person who possesses it: cunning, when it is once detected, loses its force, and makes a man incapable of bringing about even those events which he might have done had he passed only for a plain man. Discretion is the perfection of reason, and a guide to us in all the duties of life: cunning is a kind of instinct, that only looks out after our immediate interest and welfare. Discretion is only found in men of strong sense and good understandings, cunning is often to be met with in brutes themselves, and in persons who are but the fewest removes from them.”

Joseph Addison (1672–1719) politician, writer and playwright

No. 225
The Tatler (1711–1714)

Life, Men, Making love, Understanding

“Though a man has all other perfections, and wants discretion, he will be of no great consequence in the world; but if he has this single talent in perfection, and but a common share of others, he may do what he pleases in his station of life.”

Joseph Addison (1672–1719) politician, writer and playwright

No. 225
The Tatler (1711–1714)

Life, World, Perfection

“The discreet man finds out the talents of those he converses with, and knows how to apply them to proper uses. Accordingly, if we look into particular communities and divisions of men, we may observe that it is the discreet man, not the witty, nor the learned, nor the brave, who guides the conversation, and gives measures to the society.”

Joseph Addison (1672–1719) politician, writer and playwright

No. 225
The Tatler (1711–1714)

Men, Communication, Learning

“Success is not about having, it’s about living. Success does not mean achievement. Its definition keeps on changing. Through the changing times success achieved in the previous stages becomes irrelevant and the achievements should never be considered as success in present time. Your talent and and skills may take you to certain heights but the attitude filled within you is what takes you to the higher destiny.”

Gaur Gopal Das (1973) Indian spiritual leader, lifestyle coach and motivational speaker

[‘Failures are positive steps for success', https://www.deccanherald.com/failures-are-positive-steps-700395.html, Deccan Herald, 28 October 2018]

Change, Time, Success

“Dreadful is Armageddon — the dark forces are struggling for their very existence. Despair unites them and makes them so persistent in trying to achieve their aim. The Prince of the World has very many talented collaborators—some conscious, some unconscious—and it is foolish to think that they do not know the ways of the most cunning subtlety. There are very shrewd and inventive, and they act according to the level of their victims. But all of them lack tolerance and warmth of heart.”

Helena Roerich (1879–1955) Russian philosopher

23 August 1934
Armageddon

World, Making love, Way, Thinking

“The communal life has long been a sign of cooperation and of mutual respect. So too each workshop can be a cell of a community in which everybody contributes his skill. Altruism is a requisite if one is to devote one’s talent to the common work.”

Helena Roerich (1879–1955) Russian philosopher

New Era Community (1926)

Life, Communication

“There are many undiscovered Mozarts, Beethovens, Einsteins, Shakespeares, Lincolns, and Washingtons out there today who do not have the freedom or the opportunity to explore their talents due to economic, political, and other constraints.”

Newton Lee American computer scientist

The Transhumanism Handbook, 2019

Freedom

“I place a profound belief—indeed a fervent faith—in the virtues of self reliance and personal independence. On these is founded the whole case for the free society, for the assertion that human progress is best achieved by offering the freest possible scope for the development of individual talents, qualified only by a respect for the qualities and the freedom of others...For many years there has been a subtle erosion of the essential virtues of the free society. Self-reliance has been sneered at as if it were an absurd suburban pretention. Thrift has been denigrated as if it were greed. The desire of parents to choose and to struggle for what they themselves regarded as the best possible education for their children has been scorned.”

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician

Speech to Conservative Central Council (15 March 1975) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/102655 Leader of the Opposition

Children, Education, Faith, Parent

“The hardest thing these days is to make something that’s beautiful; it’s easy to make ugly art. I think it takes a lot more talent to make something beautiful. Beauty to me is when you show something to someone that they’ve never seen before. That’s what a great work of art does; it shows you something that you didn’t know existed.”

Gronk (artist) (1954) American artist

On making beautiful artwork in “Gronk by Marisela Norte” https://bombmagazine.org/articles/gronk/ in BOMB Magazine (2007 Jan 1)

Making love, Beauty, Art, Thinking

“The warmth of zeal is not perhaps the most dangerous rock that we have to avoid; but rather that languour which ease produces and a distrust of our own courage. Therefore continually wind up the sacred spring of republican government, instead of letting it run down. I need not say that I am not here justifying any excess. Principles the most sacred may be abused: the wisdom of government should guide its operations according to circumstances, it should time its measures, choose its means; for the manner of bringing about great things is an essential part of the talent of producing them, just as wisdom is an essential attribute of virtue....”

Maximilien Robespierre (1758–1794) French revolutionary lawyer and politician

Principles to Form the Basis of the Administration of the Republic (February 1794)

Wisdom, Spring, Courage, Time

“Destiny so ruled that when I found myself at the helm of this state it already was clear that something was wrong in this country. We had a lot of everything - land, oil and gas, other natural resources - and there was intellect and talent in abundance. However, we were living much worse than people in the industrialized countries were living and we were increasingly lagging behind them. The reason was obvious even then. This country was suffocating in the shackles of the bureaucratic command system. Doomed to cater to ideology, and suffer and carry the onerous burden of the arms race, it found itself at the breaking point.”

Mikhail Gorbachev (1931) General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

1990s, Resignation Address (1991)

People, Nature, Suffering, Country

“He surely failed as prime minister to prevent the tragedy at Ayodhya. But his rivals in the Congress did their own party such disservice by spreading the canard that his (and their) government was responsible for that crime. This, more than anything else, lost them the Muslim vote in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar… any dispassionate reading of recent political history will tell you that this is a self-inflicted injury. The Congress has itself built a mythology whereby the Muslims have come to hold their party as responsible for Babri as the BJP … If you take Justice Liberhan’s indictment of so many in the BJP seriously, you cannot at the same time dismiss his exoneration of Rao, and the government, and the Congress Party under him. You surely cannot put the clock back on so much injustice done to him, like not even allowing his body to be taken inside the AICC building. But the least you can do now is to give him a memorial spot too along the Yamuna as one of our more significant (and secular) prime ministers who led us creditably through five difficult years, crafted our post-Cold War diplomacy, launched economic reform and, most significantly, discovered the political talent and promise of a quiet economist called Manmohan Singh.”

P. V. Narasimha Rao (1921–2004) Indian politician

Shekhar Gupta in Tearing down Narasimha Rao http://archive.indianexpress.com/news/tearingdownnarasimharao/547260/1, The Indian Express, 7 September 2011.

War, Justice, History, Memory

“While its true that masculinity must be forced and fostered, this is also true of any human potentiality. One must be forced, or force oneself to learn a language or play an instrument or solve mathematical equations. No one calls an accomplished dancer, painter, athlete or singer a phony because it took years of disciplined practice and some kind of nurturing environment to become what they are- for them to develop their talents to their full potential. On the contrary, to ignore these talents is considered a tragedy.”

Jack Donovan (1974) American activist, editor and writer

pg 31
A More Complete Beast (2018)

Mathematics, Learning

“And never forget that the Marxist societies call themselves, and indeed are, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Some of the aims of socialism, are the aims of a Marxist society, and they result in the subjugation of the rights of people to political theory. Because the Marxist system has become morally and materially bankrupt, citizens who live beneath its yoke see hope in our ideals. Ideals which limit the power of the State so that the varied talents and abilities of each person may flourish giving dignity and meaning to life. Ideals which respect the family, its loyalties, affections and responsibilities. Ideals where the rule of law is just and impartially administered. Those who live under the heel of Marxist tyranny look with envy at the very things we take for granted. They know that politics is about more than economics in a free society. So do we—we belong to the oldest and most enduring democratic Party in the world.”

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician

Speech to Conservative Women’s Conference (20 May 1981) https://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/104653 First term as Prime Minister

Life, People, World, Family

“Cultists. They’re like cockroaches. We humans are incredibly fine-tuned by evolution for the task of spotting coincidences and causal connections. It’s a very useful talent that dates back to the bad old days on the savannah (when noticing that there were lion prints by the watering hole and then cousin Ugg went missing, and today there are more lion prints and nobody had gone missing yet, was the kind of thing that could save your skin). But once we developed advanced lion countermeasures like stone axes and language, it turned into our secret curse. Because, you see, when we spot coincidences we assume there’s an intentional actor behind them—and that’s how we create religions. Nature does weird stuff, so it must be governed by supernature. There’s lightning in the clouds: Zeus must be throwing his thunderbolts again. Everyone’s dying of plague except those weird folks with the strange god who wash every day: it must be evil sorcery. And so on.”

Charles Stross The Laundry Files

Source: The Laundry Files, The Fuller Memorandum (2010), Chapter 8, “Club Zero” (p. 128)

God, Bad luck, Secret, Religion

“The Government of the proletarian dictatorship, together with the Communist Party and trade unions, is of course leaving no stone unturned in the effort to overcome the backward ideas of men and women, to destroy the old un-communist psychology. In law there is naturally complete equality of rights for men and women. And everywhere there is evidence of a sincere wish to put this equality into practice. We are bringing the women into the social economy, into legislation and government. All educational institutions are open to them, so that they can increase their professional and social capacities. We are establishing communal kitchens and public eating-houses, laundries and repairing shops, nurseries, kindergartens, children’s homes, educational institutes of all kinds. In short, we are seriously carrying out the demand in our programme for the transference of the economic and educational functions of the separate household to society. That will mean freedom for the woman from the old household drudgery and dependence on man. That enables her to exercise to the full her talents and her inclinations. The children are brought up under more favourable conditions than at home.”

Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) Russian politician, led the October Revolution

As quoted by Clara Zetkin in "Lenin on the Women’s Question", My Memorandum Book https://www.marxists.org/archive/zetkin/1920/lenin/zetkin1.htm, 1920. Attributions

Women, Men, Children, Education

“Why should living beings struggle against each other, except as they struggle to advance the general welfare? Happiness is just as valuable and just as beautiful a thing in one being as in another. Some have greater talent for it than have others but it is a state of sweetness and elation always and everywhere. And each living being, in deliberating on the problem of the proprieties, should realize the fact that, as a matter of fact, it is a matter of indifference whether this relation belongs to his sensorium or to some other sensorium. It is insane for each being to insist that he, as an organism, is the one organism to whom pleasure is indispensable. The only indispensable is that pleasure be maximized. If a definite amount of happiness is to be experienced, it is, in the eyes of the absolute, a matter of indifference whether this happiness is experienced by one individual or by another, by self or by some other conscious portion of the universe.”

J. Howard Moore (1862–1916)

Source: Better-World Philosophy: A Sociological Synthesis (1899), The Social Ideal, pp. 157–158

Happiness, Pleasure, Beauty, Problem

“Poor kids are just as bright and just as talented as white kids.”

Joe Biden (1942) 47th Vice President of the United States (in office from 2009 to 2017)

Joe Biden Says ‘Poor Kids’ Are Just as Bright as ‘White Kids’, The New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/09/us/politics/joe-biden-poor-kids.html (9 August 2019) 2019

“Urbanized men and women experience not life but the abstraction of life, on ever higher levels of refinement and dislocation from reality. They become processors of ideas, and have evolved such esoteric occupations as the critic, the critic who criticizes criticism, and even the critic who criticizes criticism of criticism. It is a very sad misuse of human talent and energy.”

Jack Vance Demon Princes

Source: Demon Princes (1964-1981), The Book of Dreams (1981), Chapter 7 (p. 264)

Life, Women, Men, Sadness

“His real talent lay above his shoulders. His was easily the hockey brain of the century. He could see a field the way a chess player sees the board. He knew where his teammates were, and more importantly where his opponents were - without looking. It was almost psychic.”

Dhyan Chand (1905–1979) Indian field hockey player

Dhyan Chand (a biographical sketch)

Way, Hockey

“Our native love of reality joins with this experience to teach us a little reserve, and to dissuade a too sudden surrender to the brilliant qualities of persons. Young people admire talents or particular excellences; as we grow older, we value total powers and effects, as, the impression, the quality, the spirit of men and things. The genius is all. The man, — it is his system: we do not try a solitary word or act, but his habit. The acts which you praise, I praise not, since they are departures from his faith, and are mere compliances. The magnetism which arranges tribes and races in one polarity, is alone to be respected; the men are steel-filings.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

1840s, Essays: Second Series (1844), Nominalist and Realist

Love, Men, People, Making love

“That happens in the world, which we often witness in a public debate. Each of the speakers expresses himself imperfectly: no one of them hears much that another says, such is the preoccupation of mind of each; and the audience, who have only to hear and not to speak, judge very wisely and superiorly how wrongheaded and unskilful is each of the debaters to his own affair. Great men or men of great gifts you shall easily find, but symmetrical men never. When I meet a pure intellectual force, or a generosity of affection, I believe, here then is man; and am presently mortified by the discovery, that this individual is no more available to his own or to the general ends, than his companions; because the power which drew my respect, is not supported by the total symphony of his talents.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

1840s, Essays: Second Series (1844), Nominalist and Realist

Men, World, Support

“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)

“Oh, Mrs. Gandhi is wrong about her father! Nehru instead was a great politician—she should have half her father’s talent! Look, even though he was against the principle of Pakistan, I’ve always admired that man. When I was young I was actually enthralled by him. Only later did I understand that he was a spellbinder with many faults, vain, ruthless, and that he didn’t have the class of a Stalin or a Churchhill or a Mao Tse-tung.”

Zulfikar Ali Bhutto (1928–1979) Fourth President and ninth Prime Minister of Pakistan

Oriana Fallaci. Interview with Ali Bhutto in Karachi, April 1972

Understanding

“That it was common to observe that this was an enlightened Age; but he had thought it for a long time past an ignorant Age. Would you, said he, call a Circulating Library a good Library, because it contains so many books? This Age is much advanced in many useless sciences, & much more respect is shewn to Talent than to wisdom; but I consider our fore-fathers as deeper Thinkers than ourselves, because they set an higher Value on good sense than Knowledge in various Sciences, & this good sense was derived very often from as much study & more knowledge, though of another sort.”

Edmund Burke (1729–1797) Anglo-Irish statesman

Present Age, p. 49
Table talk

Wisdom, Books, Age, Knowledge

“We sincerely welcome more foreign experts to China to spark innovation and pursue successful careers. And we welcome the talents from all over the world to be part of our modernization drive, and make even greater contribution to building a community with a shared future for mankind, to world peace and development, and to human progress.”

Han Zheng (1954) Chinese politician

Han Zheng (2019) cited in " China warns Taiwan of continued lockout from WHO assembly http://www.arabnews.com/node/1102951/world" on CCTV English, 28 September 2019.

World, Making love, Peace, Communication

“Even more! He had a unique talent for languages and did not have to learn any. He never did any courses! When he came back from France, he spoke French. He would quickly learn the language of any country he came to – Polish, Spanish, German, Russian… This came very easily to him. He never spent as much time to learn a language as, for example, I did. I envied my brother in this case. Moreover, he not only spoke nut also wrote. The French praised his French very much. His ear for music must have helped him. Besides, he had a good natural memory. Hence were his broad communication and a career growth.”

Vasyl Slipak (1974–2016) Ukrainian opera singer

2017 Orest Slipak, the brother of singer. Brother about brother. The Day. Кyiv.ua. - 2017. - 27 April. https://day.kyiv.ua/en/article/topic-day/brother-about-brother

Music, Communication, Nature, Learning

“Mother once said our grandfather Vasyl, after whom my brother was named, had sung very well and been a very interesting person in general. So it is believed that Vasyl inherited his talent. He supposedly had a unique voice.”

Vasyl Slipak (1974–2016) Ukrainian opera singer

2017 Orest Slipak, the brother of singer. Brother about brother. The Day. Кyiv.ua. - 2017. - 27 April. https://day.kyiv.ua/en/article/topic-day/brother-about-brother

Personality

“I am confident we can do a Brexit deal which puts jobs and prosperity first, that reassures employers that they will still be able to access the talent they need, that keeps our market for goods, services and capital open, achieves early agreement on transitional arrangements so trade can carry on flowing smoothly. The collective sigh of relief would be audible. The benefit to our economy would be huge.”

Philip Hammond (1955) British Conservative politician

Philip Hammond on Brexit: Prioritise jobs and living standards https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-40339331, BBC News, 20 June 2017 2017

Confidence, Self-confidence

“An illegal monument to the British talent for binge drinking and vandalising public property.”

Banksy pseudonymous England-based graffiti artist, political activist, and painter

Cut It Out (2004)

Drink

“He was an extraordinary man – a colorful bird against the background of academic gray. A scholar and erudite, he was witty, malicious, surprising, uncompromising and courageous. His knowledge and talent for lecturing made him a valued popularizer of neuroscience. He could simplify even very complex phenomena, showing their essence and meaning. Non-standard interpretations of the reality that he presented at the lectures were witty, but also deep and attracted fascinated youth. He loved Krakow – he knew everything about it and was a great guide. There is grief and anger in us that he was driven over at the pedestrian crossing by a delivery van.”

Jerzy Vetulani (1936–2017) Polish scientist

Małgorzata Kossut, neuroscientist, member of the Polish Academy of Sciences and friend of Vetulani. Debate on depression: in memoriam Professor Jerzy Vetulani at the XXIst Science Festival in Warsaw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AS-1L-NZYXQ (in Polish), 30th September 2017.

Love, Youth, Making love, Color

“Artemis: (to Spiro) About my name- Artemis- you were right. In London, it is generally a female name, after the Greek goddess of archery. But every now and then a male comes along with such a talent for hunting that he earns the right to use the name. I am that male. Artemis the Hunter. I hunted you.”

Eoin Colfer book Artemis Fowl: The Eternity Code

Artemis Fowl: The Eternity Code (2003)

“She is a very talented player. I see a very good future for her.”

Sania Mirza (1986) Indian tennis player

Serena Williams in 2006
India's most wanted

Future

“His greatest delight was in dreaming up a new costume, a talent he displayed early on... One year he transformed his sister into King Neptune with a bodice made of shells and raffia skirt …Never without a notebook, he scribbled down ideas as they occurred to him.”

Christian Dior (1905–1957) French fashion designer

In p. 13
Christian Dior: The Man who Made the World Look New

Dreams, Idea, Sister

“Music, for Gangubai, was an expression of faith and the note had to be searched and discovered each time a phrase was attempted. …In her case, a penetrating search for the note was more important than ornamentation. She could never achieve the sweetness, smoothness or the delicate artistry of tones that the Kirana was noted for, but with inherited talent, scrupulous cultivation and years of struggle what she achieved was unbelievable.”

Gangubai Hangal (1913–2009) Indian singer

Deepa Ganesh, in "Gangubai's search for perfection"

Faith, Music, Search, Time

“Rahman is a genius and has made the world sit up and take notice of Indian talent with his success. He has put the Indian film industry on the world map.”

A. R. Rahman (1966) Indian singer and composer

Asha Bhonsle's comments.
Film fraternity hails Rahman, Pookutty for win

World, Success

“Commended, multi-talented and innovative Rahman for bringing East and West closer through music and for making the world look at Indian film music more seriously. Diversity of his styles and themes was appealing to different sections of the society.”

A. R. Rahman (1966) Indian singer and composer

Rajan Zed in “Hollywood calling Rehman”.

World, Making love, Music

“I think he is the most talented and fearless Republican politician I’ve seen in the last 30 years. I further think that he is going to run for president, and he is going to create something.”

Ted Cruz (1970) American politician

James Carville, James Carville: Ted Cruz Is The Most 'Fearless Republican' I've Seen In '30 Years' http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/05/james-carville-ted-cruz_n_3219572.html, May 5, 2013.

Thinking

“I have so much respect of his talent, his passion, the strength of his voice.”

Alejandro Fernández (1971) Mexican singer

Christina Aguilera http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUkPfEc-8Ls

Passion

“We used to have a period called story hour. Shivaji was such a popular story-teller that after some months, he became our standard minstrel: the students simply did not want anyone else. He would not tell original stories. But he had the talent of narrating and enacting well-known, popular old tales -- like that of Vikram and the betaal -- so well that the biggest truants would come to class to listen to his stories.”

Rajinikanth (1950) Indian actor

G M Adishesh, his friend
You can see God in him at times (22 December 1999)

“The young audience of today defines Rajinikanth solely by his popular — and populist — roles, conveniently forgetting that, like his contemporary Amitabh Bachchan, it takes talent to make a formula work and something much more than mere talent to transcend it and achieve greatness.”

Rajinikanth (1950) Indian actor

Naman Ramachandran The Other Rajinikanth (5 January 2014) http://www.dailypioneer.com/sunday-edition/agenda/150th-anniversary-issue/the-other-rajinikanth.html

Making love, Forgetting

“What made her talent so great was her capacity to live what she sang. Her music was deepened by her connection to the struggles and the triumphs of the African American experience growing up in her father’s church, the community of Detroit, and her awareness of the turmoil of the South. She had a lifelong, unwavering commitment to civil rights and was one of the strongest supporters of the movement. She was our sister and our friend. Whenever I would see her, from time to time, she would always inquire about the well-being of people she met and worked with during the sixties.When she sang, she embodied what we were fighting for, and her music strengthened us. It revived us. When we would be released from jail after a non-violent protest, we might go to a late night club and let the music of Aretha Franklin fill our hearts. She was like a muse whose songs whispered the strength to continue on. Her music gave us a greater sense of determination to never give up or give in, and to keep the faith. She was a wonderful, talented human being. We mourn for Aretha Franklin. We have lost the Queen of Soul.”

Aretha Franklin (1942–2018) American musician, singer, songwriter, and pianist

John Lewis, "Congressman John Lewis on Aretha Franklin: ‘One of God’s precious gifts’" https://www.ajc.com/lifestyles/congressman-john-lewis-aretha-franklin-one-god-precious-gifts/PRXHP5dgRpjhhuIUdjGEsO/, Atlanta Journal-Constitution (August 16, 2018)

People, Faith, Music, Soul

“Rufus is one of those singular musical talents who both transcends and makes a mockery of fashion. It would not matter in which musical era he chose to materialise, but that his voice and his sensibility would be recognised as unique, timeless and without peer.”

Rufus Wainwright (1973) American-Canadian singer-songwriter and composer

Sting, House of Rufus box set

Making love, Music, Fashion

“I will dwell a little longer on his character; for it was of a very extraordinary composition. He began to make a considerable figure very early. … He had a wonderful faculty in speaking to a popular assembly, and could mix both the facetious and the serious way of arguing very agreeably. He had a particular talent to make others trust to his judgment, and depend on it: and he brought over so many to a submission to his opinion, that I never knew any man equal to him in the art of governing parties, and of making himself the head of them. He was, as to religion, a deist at best.”

Anthony Ashley Cooper, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury (1621–1683) English politician and Earl

Gilbert Burnet, in Bishop Burnet's History of His Own Time (1823), Vol. I, p. 164
About Anthony Ashley-Cooper

Making love, Religion, Art, Way

“Paul Scholes was always unbelievably talented. Quiet. And dirty. When he got his tackle right, it was a great tackle. But when he got it wrong, he could kill someone. He was so talented and a player I feel honoured to have played with.”

Paul Scholes (1974) English footballer

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/25184865
David Beckham

Feeling

“The best illustration I can give of his talent is that at Manchester United there was always a possession drill in training designed to develop our passing ability, which might be three players against another three players, or six versus six, or nine versus nine. But no matter what the numbers were, the side with Paul Scholes on their team would always win by keeping the most possession.”

Paul Scholes (1974) English footballer

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2203846/Paul-Scholes-simply-best-English-player-generation-Gary-Neville.html
Gary Neville

Training

“Santiago is the today and tomorrow of Latin American Art. His exquisite line and masterful talent are a great asset for his native Colombia.”

Santiago Martínez Delgado (1906–1954) Colombian Muralist, Painter and Illstrator

Edgar Kaufmann conversation, letter to Edgar Kaufmann Jr, 1932, Wis.
About Martinez

Art

“In the order of his thoughts, his intellectual capacity to defend his political posture with lucidity, clarity and brilliance – many of us Cubans who had the opportunity to know him could appreciate his unquestionable talent.”

Miguel Enríquez (1944–1974) Chilean politician

Armando Hart http://www.bnjm.cu/librinsula/2004/octubre/40/colaboraciones/colaboraciones207.htm

“I Like Simone very much. Potentially, there is a talent to bloom out. She is a beautiful woman, her repertory is very good and she is very well orientated by Flavio Rangel and Nelson Ayres´´.”

Simone Bittencourt de Oliveira (1949) Brazilian singer

Elis Regina, O Pasquim Journal, 1980

Beauty

“He is a driver with talent, ability and maturity, he manages to finish all his races. My record is going to be in good hands.”

Fernando Alonso (1981) Spanish racing driver

Emerson Fittipaldi, after Alonso took his record as Formula One's youngest champion. http://www.theage.com.au/news/motorsport/former-recordholder-hails-alonso/2005/09/26/1127586768600.html

“His name was William Saroyan. He was the first writer I fell in love with, boyishly in love. I was held by his unaffected voice, his sentimentality, his defiant individualism. I found myself in the stories he told… I learned from Saroyan that you do not have to live in some great city — in New York or Paris — in order to write… When I was a student at Stanford, a generation ago, the name of William Saroyan was never mentioned by any professor in the English Department. William Saroyan apparently was not considered a major American talent. Instead, we undergraduates set about the business of psychoanalyzing Hamlet and deconstructing Lolita.”

Richard Rodríguez (1944) American journalist and essayist

In my mind Saroyan belongs with John Steinbeck, a fellow small town Californian and of the same generation. He belongs with Thornton Wilder, with those writers whose aching love of America was formed by the Depression and the shadow of war. … Saroyan's prose is as plain as it is strong. He talks about the pleasure of drinking water from a hose on a summer afternoon in California's Central Valley, and he holds you with the pure line. My favorite is his novel The Human Comedy... In 1943, The Human Comedy became an MGM movie starring Mickey Rooney, but I always imagined Homer Macaulay as a darker, more soulful boy, someone who looked very much like a young William Saroyan... "Time Of Our Lives" (26 May 1997) http://www.cilicia.com/armo22_william_saroyan_6.html

Love, Making love, Business, Learning

“The capacity for personal freedom is a rare talent. Talent exists to be used.”

Matthew Stover book Blade of Tyshalle

We do not ask sheep to be wolves; we, the wolves, do not ask ourselves to be sheep. Sheep can make such rules as happen to suit them--but it's foolishly naive to expect wolves to obey."
Blade of Tyshalle (2001)

Freedom, Personality

“He is without doubt the greatest player I have ever played with, he has everything. At Liverpool, he is irreplaceable. Every big club has a standard bearer, a home-grown talent, someone with a lifelong commitment to the cause. People come and go but he’s always there. It’s him and 10 others. He’s everything to the side. That’s Steven Gerrard at Liverpool. I can’t even begin to imagine the place without him.”

Steven Gerrard (1980) English footballer

Fernando Torres on Steven Gerrard, Sep 2009 ( Source http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-1213814/My-idol-Steven-Gerrard-best-player-world-insists-Liverpool-star-Fernando-Torres.html)

People, Home, Imagination

“No rising star in the political firmament ever shone more brightly than Oswald Mosley, none promised more surely to soar to the heavens – and none fell to earth with so deadening a thud. Never were such rich talents so wretchedly squandered. Never did success turn to failure so inscrutably.”

Oswald Mosley (1896–1980) British politician; founder of the British Union of Fascists

Michael Foot, Mosley: the rise and fall of a would-be Caesar, Evening Standard, 22 October 1968.

Star, Failure, Success

“We mourn the loss of a remarkable talent gone too soon… and the passing of an extraordinary man who will be greatly missed.”

Heath Ledger (1979–2008) Australian actor

Warner Bros., Heath Memorial http://thedarkknight.warnerbros.com/HeathMemorial.html, Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., distributor of The Dark Knight

Loss

“The studio is stunned and devastated by this tragic news. The entertainment community has lost an enormous talent. Heath was a brilliant actor and an exceptional person. Our hearts go out to his family.”

Heath Ledger (1979–2008) Australian actor

Alan Horn, president of Warner Bros., and Jeff Robinov, Warner Bros. studio president. [In Quotes: Heath Ledger Tributes", http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/7204267.stm, BBC News, Entertainment, bbc.co.uk (BBC), January 23, 2008, 2008-08-23]

Family, Communication, Heart, Personality

“This minister is, as you know, the idol of the people, who regard him as the sole author of their success, and they do not have the same confidence in the other members of the council…Pitt joins to a reputation of superior spirit and talent, that of most exact honesty…with simple manners and dignity, he seeks neither display nor ostentation…He is very eloquent, specious, wheedling, and with all the chicanery of an experienced lawyer. He is courageous to the point of rashness, he supports his ideas in an impassioned fashion and with an invincible determination, seeking to have no other ambition than to elevate Britain to the highest point of glory and to abase France to the lowest degree of humiliation.”

William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham (1708–1778) British politician

François de Bussy to Étienne François, duc de Choiseul (30 August, 1761).
Jeremy Black, Pitt the Elder (Cambridge University Press, 1992), p. 215.
About William Pitt

People, Confidence, Idea, Fashion

“On the subject of dedication to a craft in addition talent, I was and especially the singing, were so original, so powerful, and so accomplished, that the tragedy of his loss, after making only the one record (though a flood of demos and live recordings was released in his wake), seemed ever more poignant. It was clear to me that Jeff Buckley had been one of the few Great Ones, a one-in-a-billion talent, a true voice of his generation, and at thirty, he had hardly begun. Whatever is left behind in the passing of a rare talent, so much is always lost.”

Jeff Buckley (1966–1997) American singer, guitarist and songwriter

Neil Peart drummer from Rush from the book, Traveling Music: Play Back the Soundtrack to My Life and Times.

Making love, Singing, Loss

“The death of John Barrymore made us think again for a minute of F. Scott Fitzgerald. They were very different men: a lot alike. Undoubtedly, they both worked hard, but there was the same sense of a difficult technique easily mastered (too easily perhaps); there was the same legend of great physical magnetism, working incessantly for its own destruction; there was the same need for public confession, either desperate or sardonic; and there was always a good deal of time wasted, usually accompanied by the sweet smell of grapes. We have seen Scott Fitzgerald when everything he said was a childish parody of his own talent, and the last time we saw John Barrymore he was busy with a sick and humiliating parody of his. The similarity probably ends there. Up to the day he died, we believe, Fitzgerald still kept his original and eager devotion to his profession, along, we like to think, with the strict confidence that he might still achieve the strict perfection that was so often almost his. Barrymore, on the other hand, had given up long ago.”

John Barrymore (1882–1942) American actor of stage, screen and radio

Wolcott Gibbs, Season in the Sun (1951)

Death, Men, Confidence, Business

“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

Feeling

“Roger Federer is the most talented tennis player I have ever seen. He has the capacity to become the greatest in history.”

Roger Federer (1981) Swiss tennis player

Nick Bollettieri. http://thestar.co.za/general/print_article.php?fArticleId=2235877

History

“Oh, I would be honoured to even be compared to Roger. He has such an unbelievable talent, and is capable of anything. Roger could be the greatest tennis player of all time.”

Roger Federer (1981) Swiss tennis player

Rod Laver, winner of 11 Grand Slams, considered by some the greatest player to ever play the game of tennis. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/core/Content/displayPrintable.jhtml?xml=/sport/2004/11/12/stfedr12.xml

Time

“Why does the sexual appetite cause so much unspeakable joy and irrational misery, so much suicidal and homicidal madness, and so much absurd theological ranting? Because every sexual choice is going to play a role in determining the temperament and talents of the next generation, and of all future generations who will inherit the earth from us. To be simple about it for once, a single friendly fuck can fill a continent with morons or geniuses in only a few thousand years.”

Robert Anton Wilson (1932–2007) American author and polymath

The Historical Illuminatus as spoken by Sigismundo Celine

Suicide, Future, Joy, Madness

“This is a reflection sad but important to the modern Governments now fallen anarchic, That they had not spiritual talent enough. And if this is so, then surely the question, How these Governments came to sink for want of intellect? is a rather interesting one. Intellect, in some measure, is born into every Century; and the Nineteenth flatters itself that it is rather distinguished that way!”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

1850s, Latter-Day Pamphlets (1850), The New Downing Street (April 15, 1850)

Sadness, Way, Question

“It is, O friends, that all of us, that many of us, should acquire the true eye for talent, which is dreadfully wanting at present! The true eye for talent presupposes the true reverence for it,—O Heavens, presupposes so many things!”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

1840s, Past and Present (1843)

“Today is my thirtieth birthday and I sit on the ocean wave in the schoolyard and wait for Kate and think of nothing. Now in the thirty-first year of my dark pilgrimage on this earth and knowing less than I ever knew before, having learned only to recognize merde when I see it, having inherited no more from my father than a good nose for merde, for every species of shit that flies - my only talent - smelling merde from every quarter, living in fact in the very century of merde, the great shithouse of scientific humanism where needs are satisfied, everyone becomes an anyone, a warm and creative person, and prospers like a dung beetle, and one hundred percent of people are humanists and ninety-eight percent believe in God, and men are dead, dead, dead; and the malaise has settled like a fall-out and what people really fear is not that the bomb will fall but that the bomb will not fall - on this my thirtieth birthday, I know nothing and there is nothing to do but fall prey to desire.”

Walker Percy book The Moviegoer

The Moviegoer (1961)

Men, God, People, Fear

“The influence of Charles Austin over me differed from that of the persons I have hitherto mentioned, in being not the influence of a man over a boy, but that of an elder contemporary. It was through him that I first felt myself, not a pupil under teachers, but a man among men. He was the first person of intellect whom I met on a ground of equality, though as yet much his inferior on that common ground. He was a man who never failed to impress greatly those with whom he came in contact, even when their opinions were the very reverse of his. The impression he gave was that of boundless strength, together with talents which, combined with such apparent force of will and character, seemed capable of dominating the world. Those who knew him, whether friendly to him or not, always anticipated that he would play a conspicuous part in public life. It is seldom that men produce so great an immediate effect by speech, unless they, in some degree, lay themselves out for it; and he did this in no ordinary degree. He loved to strike, and even to startle. He knew that decision is the greatest element of effect, and he uttered his opinions with all the decision he could throw into them, never so well pleased as when he astonished any one by their audacity.”

John Stuart Mill book Autobiography

Source: Autobiography (1873)
Source: https://archive.org/details/autobiography01mill/page/77/mode/1up pp. 77-78

Love, Life, Men, World

“I consequently remained long, and in a less degree have always remained, inexpert in anything requiring manual dexterity; my mind as well as my hands, did its work very lamely when it was applied, or ought to have been applied, to the practical details which, as they are the chief interest of life to the majority of men, are also the things in which whatever mental capacity they have, chiefly shows itself: I was constantly meriting reproof by inattention, inobservance, and general slackness of mind in matters of daily life. My father was the extreme opposite in these particulars: his senses and mental faculties were always on the alert; he carried decision and energy of character in his whole manner and into every action of life: and this, as much as his talents, contributed to the strong impression which he always made upon those with whom he came into personal contact. But the children of energetic parents, frequently grow up unenergetic, because they lean on their parents, and the parents are energetic for them.”

John Stuart Mill book Autobiography

Source: Autobiography (1873)

https://archive.org/details/autobiography01mill/page/36/mode/1up pp. 36–37

Life, Men, Children, Parent

“If not the usual suspects, what’s going on? It boils down to this: The academic gap is widening because rich students are increasingly entering kindergarten much better prepared to succeed in school than middle-class students. This difference in preparation persists through elementary and high school. As you may have heard, the incomes of the rich have grown faster over the last 30 years than the incomes of the middle class and the poor. Money helps families provide cognitively stimulating experiences for their young children because it provides more stable home environments, more time for parents to read to their children, access to higher-quality child care and preschool and — in places like New York City, where 4-year-old children take tests to determine entry into gifted and talented programs — access to preschool test preparation tutors or the time to serve as tutors themselves.”

Sean Reardon American sociologist

No Rich Child Left Behind, 2013

Money, Children, School, Family

“On closing this book, if I was to leave you with only one thought, it would be this: My life story could only happen in America. Look at my life: Here was a guy with very little observable potential- nothing much behind him except a couple loving parents. But because of the way this country functions I was able to make my way through and have a very good life. I don't think I had any special talent or ability. Anybody could do what I did if he wanted to. I've never resented anybody ho has something I didn't have, because I knew that in this country if I worked hard enough I could have it, too. The system in America allows for and welcomes success. That's worth fighting for if someone threatens to take it away. You can have anything or be anything you want in this country if you put your mind to it. Don't let anybody take that away from you.”

Lynn Compton (1921–2012) Easy Company soldier turned noted jurist

Source: Call of Duty: My Life Before, During and After the Band of Brothers (2008), p. 254

Love, Life, Books, Making love

“I thought as a kid that talent was God-given, but it’s not. God gives you talent and you should use that talent with the real meaning of that word. I was stubborn. Maybe being young had something to do with it.”

Darko Miličić (1985) Serbian basketball player

As quoted in "Storyline: Whatever Happened to Darko Milicic" https://hoopshype.com/storyline/whatever-happened-to-darko-milicic/ (21 March 2016), HoopsHype 2010s

God