John Hurt Quotes

I think you can fan the flames, but I think in the same way that a mathematician is a mathematician - He's not taught to be a mathematician. He either has a feeling for equations and an understanding and delight in it, not only in the purity of it, but in its beauty as well.

When you're talented, you're talented.

Some people are better at maths than others: no one thinks you can be 'taught' to be a mathematical genius. And no one thinks of teaching, in that context, as a kind of forcing of the will. But there seems to be an idea of writing as an intuitive pastime which is being dishonestly subjected to counterintuitive methods.

Thus, in a sense, mathematics has been most advanced by those who distinguished themselves by intuition rather than by rigorous proofs.

Probably most successful songwriters have an innate songwriting ability.

I think if you're artistic in any way, you're probably born with it. I guess it's a talent that can be learned here and there, but I think the instinct to tell a story or to create something happens maybe in the womb.

Mathematical discoveries, small or great are never born of spontaneous generation.

Genius is immediate, but talent takes time.

Britain's got talent, enormous talent; that's very obvious.

Poesy must not be drawn by the ears: it must be gently led, or rather, it must lead, which was partly the cause that made the ancient learned affirm it was a divine, and no human skill, since all other knowledges lie ready for any that have strength of wit; a poet no industry can make, if his own genius be not carried into it.

Mathematics seems to endow one with something like a new sense.

Yes, I think I have talent.

The beauty of mathematics only shows itself to more patient followers.

You can't teach somebody how to be a good writer.

You have to spend some energy and effort to see the beauty of math.

Isn't it refreshing to know that what comes perfectly natural for you is your greatest strength? Your power is in your nature. You may not think it's a big deal that you can spend hours immersed in something that interests you-alone-but the extrovert next door has no idea how you do it.

There's an old chestnut that asks whether an entrepreneur is born or made and I think it's a combination of both. You need the talent; without the talent you can't do it.

I am convinced that the act of thinking logically cannot possibly be natural to the human mind. If it were, then mathematics would be everybody's easiest course at school and our species would not have taken several millennia to figure out the scientific method.

Ballet found me. I was discovered by a teacher in middle school. I always danced, my whole life. I never had any training, never was exposed to seeing dance, but I always had something inside of me.

I don't know if I have actually good comedic timing. But I don't think I've worked at any timing. I think timing is probably something you can't work at. Well, I don't know. I definitely didn't work at it.

Mathematics is not the rigid and rigidity-producing schema that the layman thinks it is; rather, in it we find ourselves at that meeting point of constraint and freedom that is the very essence of human nature.

But I don’t think I’ve ever known such a natural at Potions!” said Slughorn. “Instinctive, you know — like his mother! I’ve only ever taught a few with this kind of ability, I can tell you that, Sybill — why even Severus —” And to Harry’s horror, Slughorn threw out an arm and seemed to scoop Snape out of thin air toward them.

Genius is born-not paid

I think maybe making films is something innate you can't really teach to begin with.

Talent is the capacity of doing anything that depends on application and industry and it is a voluntary power, while genius is involuntary.