Writer Erica Jong reminded us, “We find our calling or it finds us, and it's a sin against the fates not to use your talent when you have it.” This collection invites you to celebrate the gifts you were born with and to use them boldly.

The person born with a talent they are meant to use will find their greatest happiness in using it. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Talent, will and genius are natural phenomena like the lake, the volcano, the mountain, the wind, the star, the cloud. ~ George Sand

I believe that talent is like electricity. We don’t understand electricity. We use it. You can plug into it and light up a lamp, keep a heart pump going, light a cathedral, or you can electrocute a person with it. ~ Maya Angelou

Your talents are not yours to keep. ~ Kalamu Chache

In the long run, there is not much discrimination against superior talent. It constrains men to recognize it. ~ Carter G. Woodson

Talent is only a starting point in business. You've got to keep working that talent. ~ Irving Berlin

I believe a 'talented' person is one who has learned how to effectively cultivate and polish any of the many desirable capabilities with which most of us are born but few of us nurture. ~ Marilyn Vos Savant

One may have a blazing hearth in one's soul and yet no one ever comes to sit by it. Passersby see only a wisp of smoke from the chimney and continue on the way. ~ Vincent Van Gogh

Use what talent you possess: the woods would be very silent if no birds sang except those that sang best. ~ Henry van Dyke

Hide not your talents; they for use were made. What's a sun-dial in the shade? ~ Benjamin Franklin

Talent, lying in the understanding, is often inherited; genius, being the action of reason or imagination, rarely or never. ~ Samuel Coleridge

Talent is God-given. Be humble. Fame is man-given. Be grateful. Conceit is self-given. Be careful. ~ John Wooden

Talent is an amalgam of high sensitivity; easy vulnerability; high sensory equipment (seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, tasting intensely). ~ Uta Hagen