Themes

"The king ... like the vulgar, thinks, feels, acts, and lives Just as his father did; the unconquered powers Of precedent and custom interpose Between a king and virtue."

"You do not understand your own tradition if you do not see it in relation to others."

"Traditions are answers that have been discovered to enduring questions."

"Belief has its structures, and its symbols change. Its tradition changes. All the relationships within these forms are inter-dependent. We look at the symbols, we hope to read them, we hope for sharing and communication."

"Tradition is the living faith of the dead; traditionalism is the dead faith of the living. Tradition lives in conversation with the past, while remembering where we are and when we are and that it is we who have to decide. Traditionalism supposes that nothing should ever be done for the first time, so all that is needed to solve any problem is to arrive at the supposedly unanimous testimony of this homogenized tradition."

"Alongside the modern evils, we are oppressed by a whole series of inherited evils, arising from the passive survival of archaic and outmoded modes of production, with their accompanying train of anachronistic social and political relations. We suffer not only from the living, but from the dead"

"Do not deny the classical approach, simply as a reaction, or you will have created another pattern and trapped yourself there."

"When there is freedom from mechanical conditioning, there is simplicity. The classical man is just a bundle of routine, ideas and tradition. If you follow the classical pattern, you are understanding the routine, the tradition, the shadow — you are not understanding yourself."

"Tradition is a set of solutions for which we have forgotten the problems. Throw away the solution and you get the problem back."

"A tradition without intelligence is not worth having."

"Precedents are not mere dusty phrases, which do not substantially affect the question before us. A precedent embalms a principle. The principle may be right or may be wrong—that is a question for discussion; but at the first glance it is right to conclude that it is a principle that has been acted upon and recognised by those who preceded us."

"The time-honoured tradition of the human race ... is around and about us and within us; we cannot think except in the forms and processes of thought which it supplies. Is it possible to doubt and to test it? and if possible, is it right?We shall find reason to answer that it is not only possible and right, but our bounden duty; that the main purpose of the tradition itself is to supply us with the means of asking questions, of testing and inquiring into things; that if we misuse it, and take it as a collection of cut-and-dried statements to be accepted without further inquiry, we are not only injuring ourselves here, but, by refusing to do our part towards the building up of the fabric which shall be inherited by our children, we are tending to cut off ourselves and our race from the human line."

"Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about."

"Access to talented and creative people is to modern business what access to coal and iron ore was to steel-making."

"Anyone with a normal brain has the capacity to do almost anything, but when one has special gifts or talents (and everyone has) and takes advantage of and develops these talents – that person is likely to excel."

"To THINK BIG and to use our talent doesn't mean we don't have difficulties on the way. We will - we all do. How we view those problems determines how we end up."

"Genius … means the transcendent capacity of taking trouble."

"Talent is always queer-tempered."

"Talent is like electricity. We don't understand electricity. We use it."

"Talent must be protected, especially if it's viewed as a threat. And what's more threatening to the status quo than a visionary?"

"He was a loser, you know. Every high school has to have at least two: it's like a national law. One male, one female. Everyone's dumping ground."

""Take therefore the talent from him." It is being taken away rapidly, and the shreds of it will very soon be all that is left. Your religious nature will finally become a virtually exterminated organ. The purpose you have at some future time to use your talent avails nothing. It is going from you, and, before you know it, will be utterly, irrevocably gone. My friends, there is not an hour to lose. Only with the greatest difficulty will you be able, now, to gather up yourself and open your closing gates to the entrance of God and His salvation."

"The man that wrapped up his talent in the napkin and said, "Lo, there thou hast that is thine," was too sanguine. There was never an unused talent rolled up in a handkerchief yet, but when it was taken out and put into the scales, it was lighter than when it was committed to the keeping of the earth."

"Men of splendid talents are generally too quick, too volatile, too adventurous, and too unstable to be much relied on; whereas men of common abilities, in a regular, plodding routine of business, act with more regularity and greater certainty. Men of the best intellectual abilities are apt to strike off suddenly, like the tangent of a circle, and cannot be brought into their orbits by attraction or gravity — they often act with such eccentricity as to be lost in the vortex of their own reveries. Brilliant talents in general are like the ignes fatui; they excite wonder, but often mislead. They are not, however, without their use; like the fire from the flint, once produced, it may be converted, by solid, thinking men, to very salutary and noble purposes."

"The way to attain to larger gifts is to employ the gifts you have. Give Jesus the one talent, and then He may trust you with two. If you cannot speak glibly in a prayer-meeting, then stammer out your heart's thanks in the best fashion you can. It may be that your few broken words may accomplish more than another man's fluent harangues."

"Ne forçons point notre talent; Nous ne ferions rien avec grâce: Jamais un lourdaud, quoi qu'il fasse, Ne saurait passer pour galant."

"Occultæ musices nullus respectus."

"Magni est ingenii revocare mentem a sensibus, et cogitationem a consuetudine abducere."

"Every one of us is born with some kind of talent. In early manhood or womanhood each individual begins to see a path, though perhaps dimly, that beckons to him or her. All of us have this leaning toward, or desire for doing ably, a certain kind of work, and only want an opportunity to prove our capacity in that direction. These hunches, these signs of one's natural trend, are usually right, and are not to be thrust aside without regret in later life."

"Punitis ingeniis, gliscit auctoritas."

"A man with talent eats, sweats, and cares for his children like any other. And if talent is a natural thing, remember that water is also, and fire, and wind; therefore flood and holocaust and hurricane are as natural as talent, and can consume and destroy you."

"Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see. With people with only modest ability, modesty is mere honesty; but with those who possess great talent, it is hypocrisy."

"It is a very rare thing for a man of talent to succeed by his talent."

"Just how rare is mathematical talent? Many observers believe that such talent is indeed rare and that we now come close to discovering all of it. According to them we cannot markedly increase the number of Ph.D.'s in mathematics if we wish to maintain traditional standards — the native ability just isn't there. Others (and might be in this group) believe that many more people could create mathematics if they had the proper instruction. It would be pretty hard to devise a controlled experiment to answer this question."

"Medium talent."

"I thought as a kid that talent was God-given, but it’s not. God gives you talent and you should use that talent with the real meaning of that word. I was stubborn. Maybe being young had something to do with it."

"Talent is that which is in a man's power; genius is that in whose power a man is."

"...but talent is a dreadfully cheap commodity, cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work and study; a constant process of honing. Talent is a dull knife that will cut nothing unless it is wielded with great force..."

"Es bildet ein Talent sich in der Stille,Sich ein Charakter in dem Strom der Welt.Talent develops in quiet places, character in the full current of human life."

"If the whole world were a party, Jeremy would not have ended up in the kitchen. He envied the people who had made it as far as the kitchen. There might be food in the kitchen, and even some wine if you could fish the cigarette butts out of the bottle. There might even be a girl in the kitchen, although Jeremy knew the limits of his imagination. But Jeremy would never even get an invite."

"Antisemitism"

"Javier: Alright. We got an ex-Triad member, looking for work."

"The historian... has to conform to official interpretations of the past, the philosopher to dogmas, the writer to stereotypes of human action, the craftsman to “production-schedules."

"All members of the world community should resolutely discard old stereotypes and motivations nurtured by the Cold War, and give up the habit of seeking each other's weak spots and exploiting them in their own interests."

"Can science ever be immune from experiments conceived out of prejudices and stereotypes, conscious or not?"

"All stereotypes turn out to be true. This is a horrifying thing about life. All those things you fought against as a youth: you begin to realize they're stereotypes because they're true."

"To some extent we are all the prisoners of stereotypes; we see each other in terms of distorted and oversimplified images. Better communication in the realm of ideas, of the arts, and of science can help refashion these false images. And by seeing more clearly we may act more wisely."

"Today, there are still political and social networks that seek to undermine full equality for all Americans. Their messages are spread using the standard tools: prejudice, fear, disdain, misinformation, trivialization, patronizing stereotypes, demonization and even scare-mongering conspiracy theories."

"What does one mean by humanitarian rules and humanity? Babaji says one should not have hatred towards anyone; one should try not to let down other people; one should try to help others; one should try to love all."

"The thing we must do intensely is be human together. People are more important than things. We must get together. The best thing humans can have going for them is each other. We have each other. We must reject everything which humiliates us. Humans are not objects of consumption. We must develop an absolute priority of humans ahead of profit — any humans ahead of any profit. Then we will survive. … Together."