Thoughts

Natural abilities are like natural plants, that need
pruning by study
.
Francis Bacon (1561- 1620) Essays: Of Studies

I add this also, that natural ability without education has
oftener raised man to glory and virtue than education
without natural ability.

Cicero ( 106- 43 B.C.) Oratio Pro Licinio Archia

Skill to do comes of doing
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803- 18829 Society and Solitude

A man who qualifies himself well for his calling, never fails of employment.
Thomas Jefferson (1743- 1826)

It is a great ability to be able to conceal one's ability
François de La Rochefoucauld (1613- 1680) Maxims

Better be proficient in one art than smattered in a hundred.
Japanese proverb

So long as a man imagines that he cannot do this or that, so long is he determined not to do it; and consequently so long is it impossible to him that he should do it.
Benedict Spinoza (1632- 1677) Ethics

They are able because they think they are able.
Vergil (70- 19 B.C.) Aeneid