Achievement is talent plus preparation. The problem with this view is that the closer psychologists look at the careers of the gifted, the smaller the role innate talent seems to play and the bigger the role preparation seems to play.
Talent does what it can; genius does what it must.
Talent is one of the few things that can't be created. It can be enhanced - it can be coached and brought out of people - but you can't deny it.
Acting was something that I grew up just doing. I certainly never thought about it.
Nature herself seems, I say, to take the pen out of his hand, and to write for him with her own bare, sheer, penetrating power.
I am exceedingly lucky that my voice, along with perfect pitch and perfect rhythm, was given me at birth.
Angling is somewhat like poetry, men are to be born so.
I've just been playing football for a long time. I've been playing football since I was a little kid, so it's just some natural blessings that God has blessed me with to get to the ball and understand what I've been doing over the years.
Economics comes easily to me, and we all seek out what we do well in life. I had in mind becoming a businessman. And I was good at logic and reasoning; figures were comfortable inside my head.
There ain't much to being a ballplayer, if you're a ballplayer.
Genius is talent in which character makes itself heard.
My body is very wise; it knows how to heal itself.
Maybe it's innate: I have a body built to jump.
Genius - to know without having learned; to draw just conclusions from unknown premises; to discern the soul of things.
My family was not an artistic family, but somewhere in my head, I thought I might be good at it. I don't know why I thought it. I had no evidence to think I might be good at it.
To my mind, talent doesn't really exist.
But I think talent as a writer is hard-wired in, it's all there, at least the basic elements of it. You can't change it any more than you can choose whether to be right handed or left handed.
First of all a natural talent is required; for when Nature opposes, everything else is in vain; but when Nature leads the way to what is most excellent, instruction in the art takes place.
Talent is a flame. Genius is a fire.
Nature has given to our black brethren talents equal to those of any other color of men; and that the appearance of the want of them is owing merely to the degraded condition of their existence.
Many books have been written about what the X-factor is, what separates people who win big matches versus those who struggle. Some of it's innate, but there's a piece of it that's learned, embracing those moments.
You can teach somebody how to be a brain surgeon, but you cannot teach them how to walk on a stage and make people laugh.
I believe that everyone has some huge talent in them; the really lucky ones discover what it is.
I think you're either born a leader or you're not.
Perfect pitch is genetic. It's 100% genetic.
