A Quote by Oscar Wilde

I gave my genius to my life, but my talent to my art.

Oscar Wilde

Quote Topics

Art Gave Genius Life My Life Talent

Quote Author

Oscar Wilde
Irish - Poet
October 16, 1854 - November 30, 1900

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

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

I truly believe we all have a sleeping giant within us. Each of us has a talent, a gift, our own bit of genius just waiting to be tapped. It might be a talent for art or music... a special way of relating to the ones you love. It might be a genius for selling or innovating.... I choose to believe that our Creator doesn't play favorites, that we've all been created unique, but with equal opportunities for experiencing life to the fullest.

Tony Robbins

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.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Talent is full of thoughts, Genius is thought. Talent is a cistern, Genius a fountain.

Edwin Percy Whipple

Talent wears well, genius wears itself out; talent drives a snug brougham in fact; genius, a sun-chariot in fancy.

Ouida

The peril of every fine faculty is the delight of playing with it for pride. Talent is commonly developed at the expense of character, and the greater it grows, the more is the mischief. Talent is mistaken for genius, a dogma or system for truth, ambition for greatness, ingenuity for poetry, sensuality for art.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

I think all writers have a bit of genius in them, and a bit of talent. Genius retreats but talent improves.

Martin Amis

the distinction between talent and genius is definite. Talent combines and uses; genius combines and creates.

Anna Brownell Jameson

The Muse gave the Greeks genius and the art of the well-turned phrase.

Horace

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

When I had to fill in my immigration papers, I gave my age as 19, and my profession as genius; I added that I had nothing to declare except my talent.

Oscar Wilde

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

Paul Valery

Talk not of genius baffled. Genius is master of man. Genius does what it must, and Talent does what it can.

Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

The mathematician's best work is art, a high perfect art, as daring as the most secret dreams of imagination, clear and limpid. Mathematical genius and artistic genius touch one another.