Natural abilities can almost compensate for the want of every kind of cultivation, but no cultivation of the mind can make up for the want of natural abilities.

The mind unlearns with difficulty what it has long learned.

To me, a leader is someone who holds her- or himself accountable for finding potential in people and processes. And so what I think is really important is sustainability.

When you talk about black entrepreneurship, you’re talking about addressing the foundation of what’s going on with our people when we don’t have any financial power. Our basic needs aren’t being met in a lot of cases, so there’s no way we’re going to be able to tap into our potential until we address those bottom-level base needs.

I like not fair terms and a villain’s mind.

I wish I could make music about politics. I feel like it’s such an art and a talent that I admire tremendously, but when I step into the studio, I step out of the real world, and it’s therapeutic.

The most talented do not always end up as celebrities, and those with less talent often do. Upsets are written into our history and occur around us every day.

Black or white good parts are hard to come by. A good actor with a good opportunity has a shot; without the opportunity it doesn’t matter how good you are.

We need to steer clear of this poverty of ambition, where people want to drive fancy cars and wear nice clothes and live in nice apartments but don’t want to work hard to accomplish these things. Everyone should try to realize their full potential.

Beethoven can write music, thank God, but he can do nothing else on earth.

To me the ego is the habitual and compulsive thought processes that go through everybody’s mind continuously. External things like possessions or memories or failures or successes or achievements. Your personal history.

Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything.

People think that at the top there isn’t much room. They tend to think of it as an Everest. My message is that there is tons of room at the top.

It is impossible to imagine Goethe or Beethoven being good at billiards or golf.

Mother Earth is very talented. She has produced Buddhas, bodhisattvas, great beings.

We like to think about how smart we are. But I think talent as a writer is hard-wired in, it’s all there, at least the basic elements of it. You can’t change it any more than you can choose whether to be right handed or left handed.

Our problems are man-made, therefore they may be solved by man. And man can be as big as he wants. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings.

We have the resources to build room for a trillion humans in this solar system, and when we have a trillion humans, we’ll have a thousand Einsteins and a thousand Mozarts. It will be a way more interesting place to live.

I think any activity you have your kids in, you’re all trying to live vicariously through them. And you’re jealous of the kid that’s naturally more talented or has the facility, the body, the genes, or the God-given talent. People get jealous of that.

I think being able to age gracefully is a very important talent. It is too late for me.

We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn’t want to meet.

Knowledge of the past and of the places of the earth is the ornament and food of the mind of man.

Celebrity is the chastisement of merit and the punishment of talent.

Most people have the opportunity of a lifetime flash right in front of them, and they fail to see it. A year later, they find out about it, after everyone else got rich.

I didn’t think it was special to be able to sing.

If you’re a human being, you can attempt to do what other human beings have done. We don’t understand talent any more than we understand electricity.

What a waste it is to lose one’s mind. Or not to have a mind is being very wasteful. How true that is.

The mind is a superb instrument if used rightly. Used wrongly, however, it becomes very destructive. To put it more accurately… you usually don’t use it at all. It uses you.

Facts are to the mind what food is to the body.

I love to play. And fortunately, I don’t know a lot of musicians that suck. I know a bunch of really good ones, and they’re always up for playing.

Sowing is not as difficult as reaping.

It is a fine thing to have ability, but the ability to discover ability in others is the true test.

Talent grips us. We are overtaken by the beauty of Michelangelo’s sculpture, riveted by Mariah Carey’s angelic voice, doubled over in laughter by the comedy of Robin Williams, and captivated by the on screen performances of Denzel Washington.

Literature, not scripture, sustains the mind and – since there is no other metaphor – also the soul.

I knew I belonged to the public and to the world, not because I was talented or even beautiful, but because I had never belonged to anything or anyone else.

One is lucky to be born in a place where no one is doing it, because then you can say, ‚Well, obviously I can write better than everyone else in high school.‘ You have no idea of the competition.

People have this capacity within them to set the world straight.

Actors I admire? Ed Harris, or course, I think he’s terrific; because I know he always had to fight being what he looked like a lot, but I think he’s a terrific actor.

I have seen how leaders rule by intimidation. Leaders who demonize and dehumanize entire groups of people often do so because they have nothing else to offer. And I have seen how places that stifle the voices and dismiss the potential of their citizens are diminished: how they are less vital, less hopeful, less free.

No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear.

It’s not about charisma and personality, it’s about results and products and those very bedrock things that are why people at Apple and outside of Apple are getting more excited about the company and what Apple stands for and what its potential is to contribute to the industry.

What’s right about America is that although we have a mess of problems, we have great capacity – intellect and resources – to do some thing about them.

With people of limited ability modesty is merely honesty. But with those who possess great talent it is hypocrisy.

My biggest criticism is how can people be so easily satisfied? Even people with talent.

If you plan on being anything less than you are capable of being, you will probably be unhappy all the days of your life.

A word of encouragement from a teacher to a child can change a life. A word of encouragement from a spouse can save a marriage. A word of encouragement from a leader can inspire a person to reach her potential.

I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious.

Every mind must make its choice between truth and repose. It cannot have both.

The pendulum of the mind alternates between sense and nonsense, not between right and wrong.

I think one of my pursuits over the years is trying to answer the question of, ‚What else can you do with a voice other than stand in front of a microphone and sing?‘

There’s no better place in the world for technology start-ups than Silicon Valley; there’s such an incredible well of talent and capital and resources. The whole system is set up to foster the creation of new companies.

I’m much more comfortable and confident running out on the field in front of 70,000 people instead of standing in front of a camera trying to say some lines. The people who do that as a profession are very talented because it’s certainly not easy.

A true artist is expected to be all that is noble-minded, and this is not altogether a mistake; on the other hand, however, in what a mean way are critics allowed to pounce upon us.

I can play a lot of different instruments adequately but nothing really well.

Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little.

If I’d been born ugly, you’d never have heard of Pele.

The solar system can support a trillion humans. And then we’d have a thousand Mozarts and a thousand Einsteins.

I want to challenge you today to get out of your comfort zone. You have so much incredible potential on the inside. God has put gifts and talents in you that you probably don’t know anything about.

The gift of fantasy has meant more to me than my talent for absorbing positive knowledge.

We have more possibilities available in each moment than we realize.

In the spring of 1929, I returned to the United States. I was homesick for this country. I had learned in my student days a great deal about the new physics. I wanted to pursue this myself, to explain it, and to foster its cultivation.