Aphorism #61
Talent is a seed that needs fertile soil.
Talent is the innate ability to put something into effect, abetted by a good working attitude and driven by an appetite for hard work.
Talent itself cannot be taught, but what talent there is can be helped along. Good teaching helps. More important, and much less recognized, are the myriad intangible attributes of the environment—what is "in the air"—that we see in the English language in Elizabethan times, classical music of the late 18th century, Fauve painting and Cubism in the first years of the 20th century, Jazz in the 1920s and ’30s, and other rare circumstances.
The seeds of talent are always present. As in nature, something must be there to nurture them.
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