Whether a little less might not have been better

কালকের পোস্টে প্রতিভাট্রতিভা নিয়ে আলোচনা করার পর আজই ব্রেইন পিকিংস -এ এই পোস্টটা পড়লাম। ওঁদের সাইট থেকে, আর ইন্টারনেটের খাঁজখোঁজ থেকে কুড়োনোবাড়ানো ট্যালেন্ট বনাম জিনিয়াস সংক্রান্ত কয়েকটা কোটেশন এই রইল।

Talent is insignificant. I know a lot of talented ruins. Beyond talent lie all the usual words: discipline, love, luck, but most of all, endurance. —James Baldwin

Genius gives birth, talent delivers. —Jack Kerouac

The Man of Genius may at the same time be, indeed is commonly, an Artist, but the two are not to be confounded. The Man of Genius, referred to mankind, is an originator, an inspired or demonic man, who produces a perfect work in obedience to laws yet unexplored. The Artist is he who detects and applies the law from observation of the works of Genius, whether of man or nature. The Artisan is he who merely applies the rules which others have detected. There has been no man of pure Genius; as there has been none wholly destitute of Genius. —Henry David Thoreau

Talent is like the marksman who hits a target which others cannot reach; genius is like the marksman who hits a target … which others cannot even see. —Arthur Schopenhauer

The difference between talent and genius is in the direction of the current: in genius, it is from within outward; in talent from without inward. —Ralph Waldo Emerson

Genius is seldom recognized for what it is: a great capacity for hard work. --Henry Ford

(নিচের উদ্ধৃতিদুটো যদিও ট্যালেন্ট বনাম জিনিয়াস সংক্রান্ত নয়, তবু এখানে জুড়ে দিলাম। প্রথমটা, গোয়েন্দাগল্প লেখকরা যে কত বুদ্ধিমান হন তার প্রমাণ হিসেবে। দ্বিতীয়টা, মনের কথা হিসেবে।)

Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself, but talent instantly recognizes genius.’ —Arthur Conan Doyle

Sometimes, indeed, there is such a discrepancy between the genius and his human qualities that one has to ask oneself whether a little less talent might not have been better.’ —Carl Gustav Jung