Prodigies Quotes

The Royal Tenenbaums," she said. "It's about a family of prodigies. ~ John Green

It is reported of that prodigy of parts, Monsieur Pascal, that till the decay of his health had impaired his memory, he forgot nothing of what he had done, read, or thought, in any part of his rational age. This is a privilege so little known to most men, that it seems almost incredible to those who, after the ordinary way, measure all others by themselves; but yet, when considered, may help us to enlarge our thoughts towards greater perfections of it, in superior ranks of spirits. ~ John Locke

Sometimes, the Angel [of Music] leans over the cradle ... and that is how there are little prodigies who play the fiddle at six better than men of fifty, which, you must admit is very wonderful. Sometimes, the Angel comes much later, because the children are naughty and won't learn their lessons or practice their scales. And sometimes, he does not come at all, because the children have a wicked heart or a bad conscience. ~ Gaston Leroux

Arrested for the second, whether in admiration for Lord d'Aubigny's inventiveness or in a kind of silent snort of hysteria at the prodigies expected of him - a condition, O'LiamRoe recognized, to which Lymond was all too prone - Francis Crawford was off guard for the one moment that mattered. ~ Dorothy Dunnett

Oddly enough, my partner went on Prodigy when it first came out, and I ended up playing with some of that stuff!. ~ Bobby Sherman

Miracles are like stones: they are everywhere, offering up their beauty, but hardly anyone concedes value to them. We live in a reality where prodigies abound but are seen only by those who have developed their perception of them. Without this perception everything is banal, marvelous events are seen as chance, and one progresses through life without possessing the key that is gratitude. When something extraordinary happens it is seen as a natural phenomenon that we can exploit like parasites, without giving anything in return. But miracles require an exchange; I must make that which is given to me bear fruit for others. If one is not united with oneself, the wonder cannot be captured. Miracles are never performed or provoked: they are discovered. If someone who believes himself to be blind takes off his dark glasses, he will see the light. That darkness is the prison of the rational. ~ Alejandro Jodorowsky

Did you know only fifteen percent of the crimes in this city are committed by prodigies? But the Renegades put eighty percent of their task force on hunting down prodigy offenders, and all but ignore the rest. If they really cared about justice and protecting the weak, you'd think they'd give a bit more effort to the actual problem."

"In their eyes, we are the only real problem," said Narcissa. "We take the blame for everything that goes wrong in this city. All so the Renegades can go on pretending to be big and honorable. 'Look, we caught another prodigy, one who robbed a convenience store six years ago! Don't you feel safe now?' It's prejudice, every bit as much as the people who used to stone us for being demons. ~ Marissa Meyer

Had Martha Foley returned William [James Sidis]'s passion as Margaret [Engemann] did Norbert [Wiener]'s, perhaps the two prodigies would have had more in common in the long run. ... In the life of a prodigy, perhaps more than in the average life, a marriage or a requited love is the greatest single factor that can heal the old childhood wounds. William and Norbert's response to their childhood and teenage rejections and humiliations was to retreat into the painless world of ideas, where successes and satisfactions abounded. A successful love affair could be the key to reentry into the world of feeling, bridging the gap between the cerebral and the emotional lives. ~ Amy Wallace

Those rare individuals society labels geniuses are almost always freaks of nature and are naturally gifted rather than being diligent students who became geniuses because of their education. ~ James Morcan

As our parents often say, share your God-given gifts and talents to help others ~ Tiara Tanishq Abraham 7yearold College Prodigies

I listen to a variety of stuff on my iPod: Chemical Brothers, Prodigy, Public Enemy, Foo Fighters, anything that gets my adrenalin flowing. ~ Chris Hoy

I was never pegged to be the next great American tennis player by any means. I wasn't a prodigy. I'm a late bloomer. Whatever happens, I'm proud of what I've done. ~ John Isner

A kindly gesture bestowed by us on an animal arouses prodigies of understanding and gratitude. ~ Sidonie Gabrielle Colette

In life's last scene what prodigies surprise,
Fears of the brave, and follies of the wise!
From Marlborough's eyes the streams of dotage flow,
And Swift expires a driveller and a show. ~ Samuel Johnson

I believe that every man has in his soul a passion for treasure-hunting, which will often drive a coward into prodigies of valour. ~ John Buchan

Everyone wants a prodigy to fail; it makes our mediocrity more bearable. ~ Harold Bloom

If a sense of duty tortures a man, it also enables him to achieve prodigies. ~ H.L. Mencken

Most of our children are not prodigies, or even particularly gifted in any one field, but they all have the potential to shine as individuals in some way if given the right conditions. ~ Barbara Lourie Sand

Everyone loves a prodigy [...]. Prodigies get us off the hook for living ordinary lives. We can tell ourselves we're not special because we weren't born with it, which is a great excuse. ~ Nathan Hill

But how shall we excuse the supine inattention of the Pagan and philosophic world to those evidences which were presented by the hand of Omnipotence, not to their reason, but to their senses? During the age of Christ, of his apostles, and their first disciples, the doctrine which they preached was confirmed by innumerable prodigies. The lame walked, the blind saw, the sick were healed, the dead were raised, daemons were expelled, and the laws of Nature were frequently suspended for the benefit of the church. ~ Edward Gibbon

The philosopher, who with calm suspicion examines the dreams and omens, the miracles and prodigies, of profane or even of ecclesiastical history, will probably conclude that, if the eyes of the spectators have sometimes been deceived by fraud, the understanding of the readers has much more frequently been insulted by fiction. ~ Edward Gibbon

There's a stark difference between the words 'prodigy' and 'genius.' Prodigies can very quickly learn what other people have already figured out; geniuses discover that which no one has ever previously discovered. Prodigies learn; geniuses do. ~ John Green

The knowledge that [he] had passed a loveless, institutionalized childhood and had escaped from his origins by prodigies of pure intellect, at the cost of all other human qualities, helped one to understand him - but not to like him. ~ Arthur C. Clarke

The vast majority of child prodigies don't become adult geniuses. ~ John Green

New poems no longer come to me with their prodigies of metaphor and assonance. Prose endures. I feel the circles grow smaller, and old age is a ceremony of losses, which is, on the whole, preferable to dying at forty-seven or fifty-two. ~ Donald Hall

Albert [Brooks] was rare in that he could make adults laugh. He was a prodigy. At age 15 and 16, he could make my dad laugh uncontrollably. And whenever we had parties, some of the funniest people of my generation - whether it was Billy Crystal or Robin Williams or John Belushi - would be doing shtick. ~ Rob Reiner

In the current era, more than prodigies in mathematics, science, athletics, or art, I believe we need prodigies of good character and integrity. People who have polished their character and integrity until they shine are the ones who can be the real heroes the world needs to solve its problems. I think that, when people have the correct understanding of the meaning of human character, there will be a solution. ~ Ilchi Lee

THE PEERLESS PRODIGIES OF PHYSICAL PHENOMENA AND GREAT PRESENTATION OF MARVELOUS LIVING HUMAN CURIOSITIES ~ Frederick Drimmer

Battles, revolutions, pestilence, famine, and death, are never the effect of those natural causes, which we experience. Prodigies,omens, oracles, judgments, quite obscure the few natural events, that are intermingled with them. But as the former grow thinner every pagewe soon learn, that there is nothing mysterious or supernatural in the case, but that all proceeds from the usual propensity of mankind towards the marvellous, and that, though this inclination may at intervals receive a check from sense and learning, it can never be thoroughly extirpated. ~ David Hume

There are lots of different interpretations of the word 'prodigy.' My own is of someone who is talented and tries to help other children. So in that respect I could be called one, although I don't think I'll go off the rails. ~ Adora Svitak

For every child prodigy that you know about, at least 50 potential ones have burned out before you even heard about them. ~ Itzhak Perlman

Mia and I had been together for more than two years, and yes, it was a high school romance, but it was still the kind of romance where I thought we were trying to find a way to make it forever, the kind that, had we met five years later and had she not been some cello prodigy and had I not been in a band on the rise - or had our lives not been ripped apart by all this -I was pretty sure it would've been. ~ Gayle Forman

A common misconception among youngsters attending school is that their teachers were child prodigies. Who else but a bookworm, prowling libraries and disdaining the normal youngster's propensity for play rather than study, would grow up to be a teacher anyway? ~ Steve Brody

I confess that Magic teacheth many superfluous things, and curious prodigies for ostentation; leave them as empty things, yet be not ignorant of their causes. But those things which are for the profit of men
for the turning away of evil events, for the destroying of sorceries, for the curing of diseases, for the exterminating of phantasms, for the preserving of life, honor, or fortune
may be done without offense to God or injury to religion, because they are, as profitable, so necessary. ~ Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa

Have you noticed, now, the way people talk so loudly in snackbars and cinemas, how the shelved back gardens shudder with prodigies of talentlessness, drummers, penny-whistlers, vying transistors, the way you see and hear the curses and sign-language of high sexual drama at the bus-stops under ghosts of clouds, how life has come out of doors? And in the soaked pubs the old-timers wince and weather the canned rock. We talk louder to make ourselves heard. We will all be screamers soon. ~ Martin Amis

Brought up, as Mahomet was, in the house of the guardian of the Caaba, the ceremonies and devotions connected with the sacred edifice may have given an early bias to his mind, and inclined it to those speculations in matters of religion by which it eventually became engrossed. Though his Moslem biographers would fain persuade us his high destiny was clearly foretold in his childhood by signs and prodigies, yet his education appears to have been as much neglected as that of ordinary Arab children ; for we find that he was not taught either to read or write. He was a thoughtful child, however ; quick to observe, prone to meditate on all that he observed, and possessed of an imagination fertile, daring, and expansive. The yearly influx of pilgrims from distant parts made Mecca a receptacle for all kinds of floating knowledge, which he appears to have imbibed with eagerness and retained in a tenacious memory ; and as he increased in years, a more extended sphere of observation was gradually opened to him. ~ Washington Irving

Look how the world's poor people are amazed at apparitions, signs and prodigies! ~ William Shakespeare

Paul had always wanted to be a prodigy. But what no one ever told him was that prodigies don't feel like prodigies; they feel old. They feel like has-beens just at the moment that they're said to be blossoming. ~ Graham Moore

Well, I love what you would call boys' music, you know, the prodigy, banging techno, music that girls generally don't like. ~ Chris Lowe

Every time that a people which has long crouched in slavery and ignorance is moved to its lowest depths there appear monsters and heroes, prodigies of crime and prodigies of virtue. ~ Alphonse De Lamartine

Fears of the brave and follies of the wise. ~ Samuel Johnson

Swift is her walk, more swift her winged haste: A monstrous phantom, horrible and vast. As many plumes as raise her lofty flight, So many piercing eyes inlarge her sight; Millions of opening mouths to Fame belong, And ev'ry mouth is furnish'd with a tongue, And round with list'ning ears the flying plague is hung. She fills the peaceful universe with cries; No slumbers ever close her wakeful eyes; By day, from lofty tow'rs her head she shews, And spreads thro' trembling crowds disastrous news; With court informers haunts, and royal spies; Things done relates, not done she feigns, and mingles truth with lies. Talk is her business, and her chief delight To tell of prodigies and cause affright. ~ Virgil

Look at the real prodigies, and I look like nothing compared to them. ~ Orson Welles

I have never considered myself a prodigy. Others have used that term, but I never bought in to it. ~ Joshua Waitzkin

As geographers, Sosius, crowd into the edges of their maps parts of the world which they do not know about, adding notes in the margin to the effect, that beyond this lies nothing but sandy deserts full of wild beasts, unapproachable bogs, Scythian ice, or a frozen sea, so, in this work of mine, in which I have compared the lives of the greatest men with one another, after passing through those periods which probable reasoning can reach to and real history find a footing in, I might very well say of those that are farther off, beyond this there is nothing but prodigies and fictions, the only inhabitants are the poets and inventors of fables; there is no credit, or certainty any farther. ~ Plutarch

The children I describe here have horizontal conditions that are alien to their parents. They are deaf or dwarfs; they have Down syndrome, autism, schizophrenia, or multiple severe disabilities; they are prodigies; they are people conceived in rape or who commit crimes; they are transgender. The timeworn adage says that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, meaning that a child resembles his or her parents; these children are apples that have fallen elsewhere - some a couple of orchards away, some on the other side of the world. Yet myriad families learn to tolerate, accept, and finally celebrate children who are not what they originally had in mind. ~ Andrew Solomon

Ah, a German and a genius ! A prodigy, admit him ! ~ Jonathan Swift

I think it's fair to say that Nina Simone was a prodigy. ~ Michel Martin

I can remember wondering as a child if I were a young Macaulay or Ruskin and secretly deciding that I was. My infant mind even was bitter with those who insisted on regarding me as a normal child and not as a prodigy. ~ W.N.P. Barbellion

Destiny, quite often, is a determined parent. Mozart was hardly some naive prodigy who sat down at the keyboard and, with God whispering in his ears, let music flow from his fingertips. It's a nice image for selling tickets to movies, but whether or not God has kissed your brow, you still have to work. Without learning and preparation, you won't know how to harness the power of that kiss. ~ Twyla Tharp

If Beethoven is a prodigy of man, Bach is a miracle of God. ~ Gioachino Rossini

This book is not for parents who want to raise a perfect child. You can probably make that kind of kid, but I don't think you should. I've met more than my share of young prodigies - kids who were pushed to skip grades, memorize Latin names for every insect, and greet all adults with firm handshakes. They're weird, and not in a good way, like a corgi wearing a tuxedo: sure it's cute, but does it truly know joy? ~ Brett Berk

The prodigy who fades is an old story. But the prodigy who sets a high mark when young and then hits that mark, or exceeds it, over and over again, for a full lifespan, is truly remarkable, and worth celebrating. ~ John Baird

I felt compassion for the poor people who were taken in by [supernatural] follies. And now I think that I was at least as much to be pitied myself. Not that experience has since shown me anything surpassing my first beliefs, and that through no fault of my curiosity; but reason has taught me to condemn a thing thus, dogmatically, as false and impossible, is to assume the distinction of knowing the bounds and limits of God's will and of the power of our mother Nature; and that there is no more notable folly in the world than to measure these things by our capacity and competence. If we call prodigies or miracles whatever our reason cannot reach, how many of these appear continually before our eyes! Let us consider through what clouds and how gropingly we are led to the knowledge of most of the things that are right in our hands; assuredly we shall find that it is rather familiarity than knowledge that takes away their strangeness. ~ Michel De Montaigne

There is a certain poetic value, and that a genuine one, in this sense of having missed the full meaning of things. There is beauty, not only in wisdom, but in this dazed and dramatic
ignorance. ~ Gilbert K. Chesterton

Child prodigies amaze us because we compare them not with other performers who have practiced for the same length of time, but with children of the same age who have not dedicated their lives in the same way. We delude ourselves into thinking they possess miraculous talents because we assess their skills in a context that misses the essential point. We see their little bodies and cute faces and forget that, hidden within their skulls, their brains have been sculpted - and their knowledge deepened - by practice that few people accumulate until well into adulthood, if then. Had the six-year-old Mozart been compared with musicians who had clocked up 3,500 hours of practice, rather than with other children of the same age, he would not have seemed exceptional at all. ~ Matthew Syed

I'm one of twenty-three orphan prodigies. We were created using genetic engineering technologies that have been suppressed from the mainstream. I'm at least half a century ahead of our times in terms of official science. The embryologists who created me selected the strongest genes from about a thousand sperm donors then used in-vitro fertilization to impregnate my mother and other women. ~ James Morcan

Truths turn into dogmas the instant that they are disputed. Thus every man who utters a doubt defines a religion. And the scepticism of our time does not really destroy the beliefs, rather it creates them; gives them their limits and their plain and defiant shape. We who are Liberals once held Liberalism lightly as a truism. Now it has been disputed, and we hold it fiercely as a faith. We who believe in patriotism once thought patriotism to be reasonable, and thought little more about it. Now we know it to be unreasonable, and know it to be right. We who are Christians never knew the great philosophic common sense which inheres in that mystery until the anti-Christian writers pointed it out to us. The great march of mental destruction will go on. Everything will be denied. Everything will become a creed. It is a reasonable position to deny the stones in the street; it will be a religious dogma to assert them. It is a rational thesis that we are all in a dream; it will be a mystical sanity to say that we are all awake. Fires will be kindled to testify that two and two make four. Swords will be drawn to prove that leaves are green in summer. We shall be left defending, not only the incredible virtues and sanities of human life, but something more incredible still, this huge impossible universe which stares us in the face. We shall fight for visible prodigies as if they were invisible. We shall look on the impossible grass and the skies with a strange courage. We shall be of tho ~ G.K. Chesterton

Life is atrocious, we know. But precisely because I expect little of the human condition, man's periods of felicity, his partial progress, his efforts to begin over again and continue, all seem to me like so many prodigies which nearly compensate for the monstrous mass of ills and defeats, of indifference and error. Catastrophe and ruin will come; disorder will triumph, but order will too, from time to time. ~ Marguerite Yourcenar

SIREN, n. One of several musical prodigies famous for a vain attempt to dissuade Odysseus from a life on the ocean wave. Figuratively, any lady of splendid promise, dissembled purpose and disappointing performance. ~ Ambrose Bierce

It is one thing to get all the notes right; any number of unsocialized conservatory prodigies can do that. It is another thing to play the thoughts within the notes, the light around them, the darkness behind them, the silence at the end of the phrase. That is what inspires awe. ~ Alex Ross

The ancients of the ideal description, instead of trying to turn their impracticable chimeras, as does the modern dreamer, into social and political prodigies, deposited them in great works of art, which still live while states and constitutions have perished, bequeathing to posterity not shameful defects but triumphant successes. ~ Herman Melville

Kinsley Grace Bryant, you crazy beautiful loon, marry me so we can make hundreds of little soccer prodigies. ~ R.S. Grey

It is only when aggression is legitimate that one can expect prodigies of valour. ~ Michel Ney

Our forefathers looked upon nature with more reverence and horror, before the world was enlightened by learning and philosophy, and loved to astonish themselves with the apprehensions of witchcraft, prodigies, charms, and inchantments. There was not a village in England that had not a ghost in it, the church-yards were all haunted, every large common had a circle of fairies belonging to it, and there was scarce a shepherd to be met with who had not seen a spirit. ~ Joseph Addison

If I had writing materials, I might write a guidebook, a source of advice and inspiration for the next generation of masked criminals, bent prodigies, and lonely geniuses, the ones who've been taught to feel different, or the ones who knew it from the start. The ones who are smart enough to do something about it. There are things they should hear. Somebody has to tell them. ~ Austin Grossman

And yes, again, that was it exactly. A retyper and not a writer. A prodigy and not a genius. ~ John Green

We carry with us the wonders we seek without us; there is all Africa and her prodigies in us. ~ Virginia Woolf

I find geriatric prodigies much more interesting than child prodigies ~ David Mitchell