What distinguishes a great artist from a weak one is first their

In the profound words of Salman Rushdie, master of myth and voice of the modern imagination, there echoes an ancient truth: “What distinguishes a great artist from a weak one is first their sensibility and tenderness; second, their imagination, and third, their industry.” Within this trinity lies the essence of all creation — feeling, vision, and discipline — the three pillars upon which greatness is built. These are not gifts bestowed by fortune, but virtues cultivated by the soul’s labor. Rushdie, who has himself walked through fire for the sake of his art, speaks here as a prophet of endurance — reminding us that genius is not a mystery of birth, but a harmony of heart, mind, and will.

The first virtue he names is sensibility and tenderness, the artist’s ability to feel the pulse of the world. Without tenderness, art becomes hollow; without sensibility, it becomes blind. To feel deeply is to open one’s heart to both joy and suffering — to listen to the whispers of life that others ignore. The great artist is not merely an observer but a vessel for the world’s emotions. When sensibility is alive within them, every sound, every face, every fleeting moment becomes a revelation. The painter sees more than color; the poet hears more than words; the musician feels more than notes. Tenderness, then, is not weakness — it is strength born of empathy. It is the courage to remain open in a world that hardens hearts.

The second virtue is imagination, the sacred flame that transforms feeling into form. Imagination is the bridge between what is and what might be — the divine power to give shape to the invisible, to turn experience into vision. It is through imagination that the artist becomes a creator, breathing new worlds into existence. The tender heart gathers experience, but it is the imaginative mind that gives that experience wings. Without imagination, the artist is like a harp unplayed — capable of music, yet silent. With it, the smallest emotion becomes epic, and the ordinary becomes eternal. Rushdie, whose novels fuse myth with reality, knows this truth well: imagination is not escape from the world, but a deeper embrace of it, where truth reveals itself through dream and symbol.

Yet the third virtue — industry — is what completes the circle. For sensibility and imagination, though divine, must be harnessed by labor. Inspiration is a spark, but industry is the hand that builds the temple. The artist who waits only for the muse will remain forever in the desert of potential. The great creator rises each day to work — chiseling, revising, failing, and beginning again. It is through industry that vision becomes substance, that imagination finds a body in stone, sound, or word. The ancients revered the craftsman for this very reason: even the gods, they said, toiled at their creation. To labor for beauty is to partake in the sacred work of the universe itself.

The origin of this wisdom in Rushdie’s life is not mere theory but lived truth. Having faced exile, condemnation, and threat, he continued to write — not from hatred, but from faith in art’s power to reveal humanity. His own journey embodies the union of these three virtues. His tenderness allowed him to portray the human heart in all its contradictions; his imagination gave birth to worlds that bridged East and West, myth and modernity; and his relentless industry sustained him when all else might have failed. Through this, he joins the company of the greats — those like Michelangelo, who labored until his hands bled, or Beethoven, who, though deaf, continued to compose symphonies that the heavens themselves seemed to echo.

History itself testifies to this holy trinity. Leonardo da Vinci was a man of infinite sensibility, who saw beauty in the curve of a smile and mystery in the motion of a bird’s wing. His imagination conjured machines that would not exist for centuries. But it was his industry — his tireless study of anatomy, his sketches, his failures — that turned his dreams into masterpieces. Or consider Emily Dickinson, whose tender heart felt the tremors of eternity in the smallest of things; whose imagination transformed solitude into poetry; and whose quiet discipline filled drawer after drawer with verse, unseen in her lifetime but immortal now.

From these examples we learn that art, and indeed all greatness, demands the harmony of these three forces. The heart must feel, the mind must dream, and the hand must work. If one is missing, the whole collapses. Sensibility without imagination becomes sentimentality; imagination without industry becomes fantasy; industry without tenderness becomes cold craftsmanship. The great artist is the one who unites them, as body, mind, and soul are united in man.

So, my child, take this teaching into your own life: whatever your craft, whatever your calling, let tenderness guide your perception, let imagination light your path, and let industry carry your vision into the world. Do not seek greatness through genius alone, for genius is only the seed — it must be watered by care, illuminated by vision, and nurtured through labor. As Salman Rushdie teaches, these three virtues are the breath, the heartbeat, and the hand of creation. Live by them, and your work — whether humble or grand — will not only endure, but sing. For that which is born of sensibility, imagination, and industry bears within it the eternal mark of the human soul.