Brutes find out where their talents lie;
A bear will not attempt to fly. [ Jonathan Swift ]

Our opportunities to do good are our talents. [ Dr. Mather ]

Great talents have some admirers, but few friends. [ Niebuhr ]

Great talents are rare, and they rarely recognise themselves. [ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe ]

He who has neither friend, nor enemy, is without talents, powers, or energy. [ Lavater ]

In adversity those talents are called forth, which are concealed by prosperity. [ Horace ]

Whatever may be our natural talents, the art of writing is not acquired all at once. [ Rousseau ]

Do thoroughly whatever work God may give you to do, and cultivate all your talents besides. [ Archibald A. Hodge ]

Well, God give them wisdom that have it; and those that are fools, let them use their talents. [ William Shakespeare ]

Even in social life, it is persistency which attracts confidence, more than talents and accomplishments. [ Whipple ]

Too high an appreciation of our own talents is the chief cause why experience preaches to us all in vain. [ Colton ]

Adversity has the effect of eliciting talents, which, in prosperous circumstances, would have lain dormant. [ Horace ]

Beautiful are the roses of your youth; but time destroys them; only talents, only virtue age not and never die. [ Pfeffel ]

Virtue does not give talents, but it supplies their place. Talents neither give virtue, nor supply the place of it. [ Chinese Proverb ]

Not because of any extraordinary talents did he succeed, but because he had a capacity on a level for business and not above it. [ Tacitus ]

Exert your talents, and distinguish yourself, and don't think of retiring from the world, until the world will be sorry that you retire. [ Dr. Samuel Johnson ]

Tact is one of the first of mental virtues, the absence of which is often fatal to the best talents. It supplies the place of many talents. [ Simms ]

Talents angel-bright, if wanting worth, are shining instruments in false ambition's hand, to finish faults illustrious, and give infamy renown. [ Young ]

The world never forgives our talents, our successes, our friends, nor our pleasures. It only forgives our death. Nay, it does not always pardon that. [ Elizabeth, Queen of Roumania ]

Success in business is seldom owing to uncommon talents or original power which is untractable and self-willed, but to the greatest degree of commonplace capacity. [ Hazlitt ]

Who in the same given time can produce more than many others, has vigor; who can produce more and better, has talents; who can produce what none else can, has genius. [ Lavater ]

Talents give a man a superiority far more agreeable than that which proceeds from riches, birth, or employments, which are all external. Talents constitute our very essence. [ Rollin ]

There is scarce any man who cannot persuade himself of his own merit. Has he commonsense, he prefers it to genius; has he some diminutive virtues, he prefers them to great talents. [ Sewall ]

Was genius ever ungrateful? Mere talents are dry leaves, tossed up and down by gusts of passion, and scattered and swept away; but Genius lies on the bosom of Memory, and Gratitude at her feet. [ Landor ]

If you have great talents, industry will improve them; if moderate abilities, industry will supply their deficiencies. Nothing is denied to well-directed labor: nothing is ever to be attained without it. [ Sir Joshua Reynolds ]

Genius, with all its pride in its own strength, is but a dependent quality, and cannot put forth its whole powers nor claim all its honors without an amount of aid from the talents and labors of others which it is difficult to calculate. [ Bryant ]

Throughout the pages of history we are struck with the fact that our remarkable men possessed mothers of uncommon talents for good or bad, and great energy of character; it would almost seem from this circumstance, that the impress of the mother is more frequently stamped on the boy, and that of the father upon the girl - we mean the mental intellectual impress, in distinction from the physical ones. Mothers will do well to remember that their impress is often stamped upon their sons. [ Helen Mar ]