A Quote by Malcolm Cowley
Talent is what you possess; genius is what possesses you.
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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.
Nothing is more piquant than when a man of genius possesses mannerisms; not so when they possess him -- this leads to spiritual petrification.
A man possesses talent; genius possesses the man.
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.
Genius is a talent only for living, those who possess it have little gift for dying.
If you possess something but you can't give it away, then you don't possess it... it possesses you.
A man who possesses genius is insufferable unless he also possesses at least two other things: gratitude and cleanliness.
There are people who possess not so much genius as a certain talent for perceiving the desires of the century, or even of the decade, before it has done so itself.
The difference between talent and genius is in the direction of the current: in genius, it is from within outward; in talent from without inward.
Talent is full of thoughts, Genius is thought. Talent is a cistern, Genius a fountain.
Talent wears well, genius wears itself out; talent drives a snug brougham in fact; genius, a sun-chariot in fancy.
Men of genius are far more abundant than is supposed. In fact, to appreciate thoroughly the work of what we call genius, is to possess all the genius by which the work was produced.
I think all writers have a bit of genius in them, and a bit of talent. Genius retreats but talent improves.
the distinction between talent and genius is definite. Talent combines and uses; genius combines and creates.
Power is very much like the wind. It comes and goes; no one really owns it. People are foolish enough to think they possess power. You don't possess power, power possesses you. Power uses you.
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.
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