Talent And Effort Quotes

The conventional understanding of meritocracy is that it is a system for awarding or allocating scarce resources to those who most deserve them. The idea behind meritocracy is that people should achieve status or realize the promise of upward mobility based on their individual talent or individual effort. It is conceived as a repudiation of systems like aristocracy where individuals inherit their social status.

I am arguing that many of the criteria we associate with individual talent and effort do not measure the individual in isolation but rather parallel the phenomena associated with aristocracy; what we're calling individual talent is actually a function of that individual's social position or opportunities gained by virtue of family and ancestry. So, although the system we call "meritocracy" is presumed to be more democratic and egalitarian than aristocracy, it is in fact reproducing that which it was intended to dislodge.

Michael Young, a British sociologist, created the term in 1958 when he wrote a science fiction novel called The Rise of Meritocracy. The book was a satire in which he depicted a society where people in power could legitimate their status using "merit" as the justificatory terminology and in which others could be determined not simply to have been poor or left out but to be deservingly disenfranchised. ~ Lani Guinier

Sleep is the single most effective thing we can do to reset our brain and body health each day -- Mother Nature's best effort yet at contra-death. ~ Matthew Walker

Your wealth is in your talent and that is why you will be poor until you find yourself ~ Sunday Adelaja

When we drop all of our painful effort to attain something, then suddenly there is spaciousness in our consciousness, a sense of being unobstructed, and we are able to enjoy life as it comes. ~ Anam Thubten

He remembered those tense moments on the cliff face and kept a grin off his own face with an effort. How many women, he wondered, could have spit curses at a man while dangling from a cliff by her fingertips? With someone shooting at her?
Not many. ~ Kay Hooper

If I had done nothing more than bring McCabe's talents to the attention of what has become a world-wide audience--if I had done only this job, I believe I'd have established myself as a force for mass education and enlightenment with immediate and constructive effects on the thinking portion of the population. My association with McCabe has been enough to build a career for anyone.

{Julius on legendary scholar Joseph McCabe} ~ E. Haldeman-Julius

Writing is writing. It's an abiding, wonderful talent, craft, gift that stays with you your whole life. And you can go in different forms, and you can try them. Look at me: I'm writing novels because I found something I love because I tried it. ~ Adriana Trigiani

Whether or not you agree with the outcome, the tremendous amount that the Manhattan Project accomplished in such a short amount of time–just under three years–is astonishing. It makes you wonder what other kinds of things could be accomplished with that kind of determination, effort, and financial and political support. What if the kind of money, manpower, and resources that went into the Manhattan Project went into the fight against hunger? Cancer? Homelessness? ~ Denise Kiernan

Eleanor Roosevelt never thought that she was attractive. She never thought that she was really sufficiently appealing. And I think her whole life was a response to her effort to get her mother to pay attention to her, to love her, and to love her as much as she loved her brothers. ~ Blanche Wiesen Cook

Genius is talent provided with ideals. Genius starves while talent wears purple and fine linen. The man of genius of today will infifty years' time be in most cases no more than a man of talent. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

If you can raise the level of effort and performance in those around you, you are officially a leader. ~ Urban Meyer

Striving for happiness is a long, hard journey with many challenges. It requires eternal vigilance to win the victory. You cannot succeed with sporadic little flashes of effort. Constant and valiant living is necessary. ~ Jack H. Goaslind

That evening it was announced that curfew would be postponed until midnight, so that the families of those 'sent for labour' would have time to bring them blankets, a change of underwear and food for the journey. This 'magnanimity' on the part of the Germans was truly touching, and the Jewish police made much of it in an effort to win our confidence. Not until much later did I learn that the thousand men rounded up in the ghetto had been taken straight to the camp at Treblinka, so that the Germans could test the efficiency of the newly built gas chambers and crematorium furnaces. ~ Wladyslaw Szpilman

In some churches and religious television programs, we see an effort to make Christianity popular and always positive. This may be a comfortable cushion for those who find the hard facts too difficult. ~ Billy Graham

All scientific effort must now be concentrated in the area of defence (sic). We have learned our lesson. We, the most civilized of people, have been misled by our own sages through the last four thousand years. We are now over-civilized in a world of barbaric peoples. WE were taught centuries ago that war is not the pastime of a civilized people. We stopped the development of explosive weapons a thousand years ago, on the ground that it was inhuman and monstrous to kill innocent people. Let warriors fight with broadswords and kill each other, we said, but others who are innocent must not die by accident. Therefore, though we understood the principles of rocketry, we did not allow it to be used. Even gunpowder was used only in fireworks. We felt secure in our place under heaven, the centre of a protective ring of subject peoples, beyond whose borders we did not penetrate. Who could have imagined that those outer barbarians would themselves develop atomic bombs and rocket weapons and all manner of deadly chemicals? ~ Pearl S. Buck

It is easy to look at these waves, accomplishing so little and to think that no matter what efforts we put forth in our lives, all we're really doing is rearranging the sand grains in a beach that in essence never changes. ~ Neal Stephenson

Every man may speak truly, but to speak methodically, prudently, and fully is a talent that few men have. ~ Michel De Montaigne

In all human affairs there are efforts and there are results, and the strength of the effort is the measure of the result. ~ James Lane Allen

There is the sheer amount of Franklin's wisdom. And the talent. Franklin played four instruments. He was the nation's leading scientist and inventor, plus a leading author, statesman, and philanthropist. There has never been anyone like him. ~ Charlie Munger

I love to see new talent, new people beginning. It's a wonderful thing, and one wonders where their journey will take them. Sometimes they ask me for advice but it's very difficult to advise people. Everyone has their own destiny really. ~ Greg Lake

It is important always to have really original talent. There are lots of good designers that make attractive clothes and make women look beautiful. But at the same time, one doesn't want to lose the idea that there is someone out there who can change the way you look at fashion. ~ Anna Wintour

I'm quite sure that most writers would sustain real poetry if they could, but it takes devotion and talent. ~ Marguerite Young

It needs tremendous courage, patience, and trust to believe that one can find without effort, that one can attain without attaining, that one can arrive without stepping out of one's house. ~ Osho

Grit drives people to succeed, especially when they face daunting and prolonged challenges - a hallmark of every scaling effort. (Scaling Up Excellence) ~ Robert Sutton

The problem with enemyfying is not that we never have enemies: we often face people and situations that present us with difficulties and dangers. Moreover, any effort we make to effect change in the world will create discomfort, resistance, and opposition. The real problem with enemyfying is that it distracts and unbalances us. We cannot avoid others whom we find challenging, so we need to focus simply on deciding, given these challenges, what we ourselves will do next. ~ Adam Kahane

Nations consist of people. And with their effort, a nation can accomplish all it could ever want. ~ A. P. J. Abdul Kalam

If you could equate the amount of time and effort put in mentally and physically into succeeding on the baseball field and measured it by the dirt on your uniform, mine would have been black. ~ Mike Schmidt

And so," he said, "in the end, what must we determine? Is it the intellect of a genius that we revere? If it were their artistry, the beauty of their mind, would we not laud it regardless of whether we've seen their product before?
"But we don't. Given two works of artistic majesty, otherwise weighted equally, we will give greater acclaim to the one who did it first. It doesn't matter what you create. It matters what you create before anyone else.
"So it's not the beauty itself we admire. It's not the force of intellect. It's not invention, aesthetics, or capacity itself. The greatest talent that we think a man can have?" He plucked one final string. "Seems to me that it must be nothing more than novelty. ~ Brandon Sanderson

What happens when one has striven long and hard to develop a working view of the world, a seemingly useful, workable map, and then is confronted with new information suggesting that the view is wrong and the map needs to be largely redrawn? The painful effort required seems frightening, almost overwhelming. What we do more often than not, and usually unconsciously, is to ignore the new information. Often this act of ignoring is much more than passive. We may denounce the new information as false, dangerous, heretical, the work of the devil. We may actually crusade against it, and even attempt to manipulate the world so as to make it conform to our view of reality. Rather than try to change the map, an individual may try to destroy the new reality. ~ M. Scott Peck

How then shall a Christian bear fruit? By efforts and struggles to obtain that which is freely given? ... No: there must be a full concentration of the thoughts and affections on Christ; a complete surrender of the whole being to Him; a constant looking to Him for grace. ~ Harriet Beecher Stowe

There are many influences in my music, not only blues. R&B, Motown, gospel, old timey, jazz, even classical are all part of what I do. I started with classical, then country, then blues, and after that I started listening heavily to Motown and gospel. My earliest efforts as a songwriter were soul. Aretha Franklin, Curtis Mayfield, Wilson Pickett, Gladys Knight, James Brown, Otis Redding, Marvin Gaye and Fontella Bass are just a few of the names that come to mind as the God's of soul and Motown. ~ Rory Block

Because there is complexity, autonomy, and a relationship between effort and reward in doing creative work, ~ Malcolm Gladwell

Happiness isn't a one-size-fits-all proposition. You must define what it looks like for you and then make a conscious effort to access whatever gets you to your unique definition of joy. ~ Phil McGraw

Through [my friends] I discovered what it was to love people. There was an art to it ... which was not really all that different from the love that is necessary in the making of art. It required the effort of always seeing them for themselves and not as I wished them to be ... ~ Lucy Grealy

He leaned close to her and took a deep breath, unsettling her. "You smell of lavender. I wouldna believe a shepherdess would smell so fine."

"I bathed in a tub full of lavender this morning, just for you, so it seems, as I knew you would appreciate the effort. ~ Terry Spear

When we pay attention to this history, a pattern emerges: first, the Redeemers attacked voting rights. Then they attacked public education, labor, fair tax policies, and progressive leaders. Then they took over the state and federal courts, so they could be used to render rulings that would undermine the hope of a new America. This effort culminated in the landmark case Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896, which upheld the constitutionality of state laws requiring segregation of public facilities under the doctrine "separate but equal." And then they made sure that certain elements had guns so that they could return the South back to the status quo ante, according to their deconstructive immoral philosophy. ~ William J. Barber II

I have made tremendous efforts to work in a darker register and express the sinister and tragic quality of the place, given my natural tendency to work in light and pale tones. ~ Claude Monet

Polly had a gift for baking pies, and she poured her heart and soul into every one she made. ~ Sarah Weeks

Great entrepreneurs focus intensely on an opportunity where others see nothing. This focus and intensity helps to eliminate wasted effort and distractions. Most companies die from indigestion rather than starvation, i.e., companies suffer from doing too many things at the same time rather than doing too few things very well. ~ Naveen Jain

And after all, if stupidity did not, when seen from within, look so exactly like talent as to be mistaken for it, and if it could not, when seen from the outside, appear as progress, genius, hope, and improvement, doubtless no one would want to be stupid, and there would be no stupidity. ~ Robert Musil

For the most part, Ranger had a consistent personality.
He wasn't a guy who wasted a lot of unnecessary energy and effort. He moved and he spoke with an efficient ease that was more animal than human. And he didn't telegraph his emotions. Unless Ranger had his tongue in my mouth it was usually impossible to tell what he was thinking. But every now and then, Ranger would step out of the box, and like a little treat that was doled out on special occasions, Ranger would make an entirely outrageous sexual statement.
At least it would be outrageous coming from an ordinary guy ... from Ranger it seemed on the mark. ~ Janet Evanovich

Well, fuck, Brandt whispered. All that rational thinking had to be thrown out the window. This was why he liked irrational thinking so much better. It took less effort and the conclusions you came to were harder to refute. ~ Abigail Roux

Your brother?" St. Clair points above my bed to the only picture I've hung up. Seany is grinning at the camera and pointing at one of my mother's research turtles,which is lifting its neck and threatening to take away his finger. Mom is doing a study on the lifetime reproductive habits of snapping turtles and visits her brood in the Chattahoochie River several times a month. My brother loves to go with her, while I prefer the safety of our home. Snapping turtles are mean.
"Yep.That's Sean."
"That's a little Irish for a family with tartan bedspreads."
I smile. "It's kind of a sore spot. My mom loved the name,but Granddad-my father's father-practically died when he heard it.He was rooting for Malcolm or Ewan or Dougal instead."
St. Clair laughs. "How old is he?"
"Seven.He's in the second grade."
"That's a big age difference."
"Well,he was either an accident or a last-ditch effort to save a failing marriage.I've never had the nerve to ask which. ~ Stephanie Perkins

A half-wild beast, Nesta had once called me. It was an effort to not take his hand, to not reach out to him and tell him that I understood. ~ Sarah J. Maas

One reader is better than another in proportion as he is able of a greater range of activity in reading and exerts more effort. ~ Mortimer Adler