Unrealized Talent Quotes

James Edward Oliver might have been one of the great mathematicians of his time had he not been absolutely wanting in the power of continuous work.

Someone has a great fire in his soul and nobody ever comes to warm themselves at it, and passers-by see nothing but a little smoke at the top of the chimney and then go on their way.

[on River Phoenix] I would love to see what kind of choices he would be making now if he was still around, some of the characters that he would have played. I mean, to me he was like a rock star, you know, he had it all: he had the looks, he had a great name, he had an attitude, an energy, an excitement about him. He was instinctively like a, he was a rebel, you know? He was kind of Bob Dylan to me, at times, and he had a lot to say. And I've never seen too many interviews by him, but the ones that I saw were pretty electric, pretty... he was switched on, definitely.

I know a lot of incredibly, profoundly talented, skilled people that aren't given certain opportunities or any opportunities, and that aren't working.

Latent genius is but a presumption. Everything that can be, is bound to come into being, and what never comes into being is nothing.

We live in a world of unused and misapplied knowledge and skill.

Your mother is not crazy. Neither, contrary to popular belief, is your brother. He is merely miscast in a play. He would have made the perfect knight in a different century, or a very good pagan prince in a time of heroes. He was born in the wrong era, on the wrong side of the river, with the ability to do anything and finding nothing he wants to do.

I probably have genius. But no talent.

There are few things more difficult than to appraise the work of a man suddenly dead in his youth; to disentangle promise from achievement; to save him from that sentimentalizing which confuses the tragedy of the interruption with the merit of the work actually performed.

My brain is a great fashion designer. Unfortunately, I don't have the skills to do it.

I was a songwriter and I've written some good songs, but there are lots of greater songs that I know I have inside yet to come out.

We are all such a waste of our potential, like three-way lamps using one-way bulbs.

Somebody who should have been born is gone.

Did you ever feel, as though you had something inside you that was only waiting for you to give it a chance to come out? Some sort of extra power that you aren't using - you know, like all the water that goes down the falls instead of through the turbines?