Talent
The Oxford English Dictionary cites Lydgate with the earliest record of using the word "talent" in reference to a gifted state of natural ability.
Read more about this topic: John Lydgate
Famous quotes containing the word talent:
“A man must thank his defects, and stand in some terror of his talents. A transcendent talent draws so largely on his forces as to lame him; a defect pays him revenues on the other side.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“I put all my genius into my life; I put only my talent into my works.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
“If a man has a talent and cannot use it, he has failed. If he has a talent and uses only half of it, he has partly failed. If he has a talent and learns somehow to use the whole of it, he has gloriously succeeded, and won a satisfaction and a triumph few men ever know.”
—Thomas Wolfe (1900–1938)