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About this quote

What does it mean?
Talent is often said to create opportunities, but desire may actually create both opportunities and talent itself.
In plain terms
Wanting something badly might create not just chances but also the skills needed.
What can you take from it?
Intense desire can develop skills and open doors.

Where it applies

  • career development
  • learning
  • entrepreneurship

Putting it to work

  • skill building
  • networking
  • pursuing passions

Questions to consider

  • What desires have made you more capable?
  • Have you developed talent because you wanted it enough?

Another view

Desire alone doesn't guarantee talent or opportunity in all cases.

More from Eric Hoffer

  1. We are more ready to try the untried when what we do is inconsequential. Hence the fact that many inventions had their birth as toys.

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  2. We all have private ails. The troublemakers are they who need public cures for their private ails.

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  3. To some, freedom means the opportunity to do what they want to do; to most it means not to do what they do not want to do. It is perhaps true that those who ca…

    Permalink to quote #214

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