Your talent is God's gift to you. What you do with it is your gift back to God.
Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not: nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not: the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.
I think we judge talent wrong. What do we see as talent? I think I have made the same mistake myself. We judge talent by people's ability to strike a cricket ball. The sweetness, the timing. That's the only thing we see as talent. Things like determination, courage, discipline, temperament, these are also talent.
When you play soccer, most of the time you got to get the ball moving, but once you get into that attacking third you gotta' be creative, you gotta' let your talent take over.
When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left, and could say, 'I used everything you gave me'.
When one knows at an early age that their gift, talent and direction is musical, one tends to focus on that and let nothing interfere or impede the forward motion toward the end of that rainbow. And after 50-something years of rockin' out, you still realise there is no end to that distant rainbow until one's last sunset.
I think when there's enough will and aggression, there's no shortage of talent either.
The talent for being happy is appreciating and liking what you have, instead of what you don't have.
Motivation will almost always beat mere talent.
Talent is God-given; be humble. Fame is man-given; be thankful. Conceit is self-given; be careful.