A Quote by Paul Valery

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

Paul Valery

Quote Topics

Genius Much Nothing Talent Whatsoever Without

Quote Author

Paul Valery
French - Poet
October 30, 1871 - July 20, 1945

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

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

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

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

Edwin Percy Whipple

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

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

Ouida

Universality is the distinguishing mark of genius. There is no such thing as a special genius, a genius for mathematics, or for music, or even for chess, but only a universal genius. The genius is a man who knows everything without having learned it.

Otto Weininger

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

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

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

Genius discovers a system; average talent stereotypes it till it is shattered by fresh genius.

Sri Aurobindo

There's nothing as human as hunger. There's no creation without talent, I give you that, but talent is cheap. Talent goes begging. Hunger is the piston of art.

Stephen King

The real issue is not talent as an independent element, but talent in relationship to will, desire, and persistence. Talent without these things vanishes and even modest talent with those characteristics grows.

Milton Glaser

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.