C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917.
Versatility
He who expects from a great name in politics, in philosophy, in art, equal greatness in other things, is little versed in human nature. Our strength lies in our weakness. The learned in books are ignorant of the world. He who is ignorant of books is often well acquainted with other things; for life is of the same length in the learned and unlearned; the mind cannot be idle; if it is not taken up with on thing, it attends to another through choice or necessity; and the degree of previous capacity in one class or another is a mere lottery.
That mere will and industry can enable any man to accomplish anything is a belief common enough amongst imperfectly educated man.***But no one of really cultivated intellect denies the variety of natural endowments.