Others

Talent is a docile creature. It bows its head meekly while the world slips the collar over it. . . . But genius is always impatient of its harness; its wild blood makes it hard to train.

Great talents are the most lovely and often the most dangerous fruits on the tree of humanity. They hang upon the most slender twigs that are easily snapped off.

Ideas are a capital that bears interest only in the hands of talent.

A true talent delights the possessor first.

Talented people almost always know full well the excellence that is in them.

Talent is like electricity. We don’t understand electricity. We use it.

In the battle of existence, Talent is the punch; Tact is the clever footwork.

Silence is not always tact, and it is tact that is golden, not silence.

it is the universal or divine blood that flows through us all.

The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.

Beauty is not the goal of competitive sports, but high-level sports are a prime venue for the expression of human beauty. The relation is roughly that of courage to war.

All speech, written or spoken, is a dead language, until it finds a willing and prepared hearer.

Speak clearly, if you speak at all; Carve every word before you let it fall.

I learn immediately from any speaker how much he has already lived, through the poverty or the splendor of his speech.

I learn immediately from any speaker how much he has already lived, through the poverty or the splendor of his speech.

Solitude gives birth to the original in us, to beauty unfamiliar and perilous—to poetry. But also, it gives birth to the opposite: to the perverse, the illicit, the absurd.

Solitude gives birth to the original in us, to beauty unfamiliar and perilous—to poetry. But also, it gives birth to the opposite: to the perverse, the illicit, the absurd.

Sometimes you have to be silent to be heard.

The silence that accepts merit as the most natural thing in the world is the highest applause.

There is an eloquent silence: it serves sometimes to approve, sometimes to condemn.

Thought works in silence, so does virtue. One might erect statues to silence.

Thought works in silence, so does virtue. One might erect statues to silence.

Silence is the unbearable repartee.

Every production of an artist should be the expression of an adventure of his soul.