If nature has been frugal in her gifts and endowments, there is the more need of art to supply her defects. If she has been generous and liberal, know that she still expects industry and application on our part, and revenges herself in proportion to our negligent ingratitude. The richest genius, like the most fertile soil, when uncultivated, shoots up into the rankest weeds; and instead of vines and olives for the pleasure and use of man, produces, to its slothful owner, the most abundant crop of poisons.
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- Nature expects industry even if her gifts are generous; without art and effort, genius produces weeds instead of fruits.
- In plain terms
- You must work hard even if you are talented because without it you will fail.
- What can you take from it?
- Talent without effort yields poor results; industry is essential for success.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- Is talent enough without hard work?
- How do you sustain effort over time?
Another view
Some talents are naturally expressed without conscious industry.
More from David Hume
Art may make a suit of clothes; but nature must produce a man.
Permalink to quote #52 The great end of all human industry, is the attainment of happiness. For this were arts invented, sciences cultivated, laws ordained, and societies modelled, b…
Permalink to quote #54 It is a great mortification to the vanity of man, that his utmost art and industry can never equal the meanest of nature's productions, either for beauty or va…
Permalink to quote #51
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