Young Linnaeus was called by his teachers almost a blockhead. Not finding him fit for the church, his parents sent him to college to study medicine. But the silent teacher within, greater and wiser than all others, led him to the fields; and neither sickness, misfortune, nor poverty could drive him from the study of botany, the choice of his heart, and he became the greatest botanist of his age.
Richard B. Sheridan's mother tried in vain to teach him the most elementary studies. The mother's death aroused slumbering talents, as has happened in hundreds of cases, and he became one of the most brilliant men of his age.
Samuel Drew was one of the dullest and most listless boys in his neighborhood, yet after an accident by which he nearly lost his life, and after the death of his brother, he became so studious and industrious that he could not bear to lose a moment. He read at every meal, using all the time he could get for self-improvement. He said that Paine's "Age of Reason" made him an author, for it was by his attempt to refute its arguments that he was first known as a strong, vigorous writer.
It has been well said that no man ever made an ill figure who understood his own talents, nor a good one who mistook them.
Brutes find out where their talents lie; A bear will not attempt to fly, A foundered horse will oft debate Before he tries a five-barred gate. A dog by instinct turns aside Who sees the ditch too deep and wide. But man we find the only creature Who, led by folly, combats nature; Who, when she loudly cries--Forbear! With obstinacy fixes there; And where his genius least inclines, Absurdly bends his whole designs. SWIFT.
The crowning fortune of a man is to be born to some pursuit which finds him in employment and happiness, whether it be to make baskets, or broadswords, or canals, or statues, or songs.--EMERSON.
Whatever you are by nature, keep to it; never desert your line of talent. Be what nature intended you for, and you will succeed; be anything else, and you will be ten thousand times worse than nothing.--SYDNEY SMITH.
"Every man has got a Fort," said Artemus Ward. "It's some men's fort to do one thing, and some other men's fort to do another, while there is numeris shiftless critters goin' round loose whose fort is not to do nothin'.