A Quote by Louisa May Alcott

…because talent isn't genius, and no amount of energy can make it so. I want to be great, or nothing.

Louisa May Alcott

Quote Topics

Amount Because Energy Genius Great Make Nothing Talent Want

Quote Author

Louisa May Alcott
American - Novelist
November 29, 1832 - March 6, 1888

Talent warms-up the given (as they say in cookery) and makes it apparent; genius brings something new. But our time lets talent pass for genius. They want to abolish the genius, deify the genius, and let talent forge ahead.

Soren Kierkegaard

Never be frightened by those you assume have more talent than you do, because in the end energy will prevail. My formula is: energy plus talent and you are a king; energy and no talent and you are still a prince; talent and no energy and you are a pauper.

Jeffrey Archer

Genius is talent provided with ideals. Genius starves while talent wears purple and fine linen. The man of genius of today will infifty years' time be in most cases no more than a man of talent.

W. Somerset Maugham

It is not because the touch of genius has roused genius to production, but because the admiration of genius has made talent ambitious, that the harvest is still so abundant.

Margaret Fuller

Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not: nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not: the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.

Calvin Coolidge

Now, anybody can make a movie, and I don't see that many great movies, because I think there's only a limited amount of talent out there.

Terry Gilliam

It is only occasional that talent becomes genius - radiating sparks, brilliance, energy, and charismatic magnetism... such a talent was Janis Joplin.

Clive Davis

I think there's a really great amount of potential for Hawaii to become an example of what's possible with renewable energy because there are so many renewable resources here: energy, solar energy, and wind energy. There's so much potential here.

Jack Johnson

I intend to work for this dance of the future. I do not know whether I have the necessary qualities; I may have neither genius nor talent nor temperament. But I know that I have a Will; and will and energy sometimes prove greater than either genius or talent or temperament.

Isadora Duncan

Talent without genius isn't much, but genius without talent is nothing whatsoever.

Paul Valery

Genius differs from talent not by the amount of original thoughts, but by making the latter fertile and by positioning them properly, in other words, by integrating everything into a whole, whereas talent produces only fragments, no matter how beautiful.

Franz Grillparzer

It would be nice to make a movie that other people want to make, because every one of these movies, I basically have to find the only company in the world that's willing to make it, and it's always a big challenge. I end up spending a tremendous amount of energy and time trying to get money to make these movies and it's exhausting.

Darren Aronofsky

Energy plus talent and you are a king, energy and no talent and you are still a prince, talent and no energy and you are a pauper

Jeffrey Archer

Nothing is so much coveted by a young man as the reputation of being a genius; and many seem to feel that the want of patience for laborious application and deep research is such a mark of genius as cannot be mistaken: while a real genius, like Sir Isaac Newton, with great modesty says, that the great and only difference between his mind and the minds of others consisted solely in his having more patience.

John Todd

Genius, throughout history, has been found difficult to classify because it varies in amount: It's rare to find a genius in the context of the noun, but most people, if not all, have a bit of genius in them in the context of the adjective.