Genius quotes

Adams Abigail 1744-1818

These are times in which a genius would like to live. It is not in the still calm of life, or the repose of a pacific station, that great characters are formed... Great necessities call out great virtues.

Amiel Henri Frédéric 1821-1881

Doing easily what others find is difficult is talent; doing what is impossible for talent is genius.

Anonymous

The parting genius is with sighing sent.

Attlee Clement 1883-1967

Winston Churchill - fifty per cent genius, fifty per cent bloody fool.

Baring Maurice 1874-1945

Outline of Russian Literature

In Mozart and Salieri we see the contrast between the genius which does what it must and the talent which does what it can.

Baudelaire Charles 1821-1867

Genius is childhood recaptured.

Berenson Bernhard 1865-1919

We define genius as the capacity for productive reaction against one's training.

Blake William 1757-1827

Improvement makes straight roads; but the crooked roads without improvement are roads of genius.

Browning Elizabeth Barrett 1806-1861

Aurora Leigh

Since when was genius found respectable?

Bulwer-Lytton Edward 1803-1873

Genius does what it must, and talent does what it can.

Byron Lord 1788-1824

Letter to James Hogg

Wordsworth - stupendous genius! damned fool!

Dimnet Ernest 1866-1954

Too often we forget that genius ... depends upon the data within its reach, that Archimedes could not have devised Edison's inventions.

Doyle Sir Arthur Conan 1859-1930

The Valley of Fear

Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself, but talent instantly recognizes genius.

Duranty Edmond

It takes immense genius to represent, simply and sincerely, what we see in front of us.

Edison Thomas Alva 1847-1931

Genius is one per cent inspiration, ninety-nine per cent perspiration.

Edwards Murray D.

Men of genius are the worst possible models for men of talent.

Emerson Ralph Waldo 1803-1882

To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men - that is genius.

Emerson Ralph Waldo 1803-1882

In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts; they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty.

Erikson Erik

Genius as such can neither be explained nor treated away; only, at times, its delay and inhibition and its perversion to destructive or self-destructive ends.

Fitzgerald Edward 1809-1883

Taste is the feminine of genius.

Gardner Dr Howard

It isn't necessary to be a bastard to be a genius, but a disregard for others does seem necessary.

Goldsmith Oliver 1730-1774

She Stoops to Conquer „Song"

Let schoolmasters puzzle their brain,
With grammar, and nonsense, and learning,
Good liquor, I stoutly maintain,
Gives genius a better discerning.

Hazlitt William 1778-1830

If we wish to know the force of human genius, we should read Shakespeare. If we wish to see the insignificance of human learning, we may study his commentators.

Ingersoll Robert G. 1833-1899

In the republic of mediocrity, genius is dangerous.

James William 1842-1910

Genius, in truth, means little more than the faculty of perceiving in an unhabitual way.

Johnson Samuel 1709-1784

The true genius is a mind of large general powers, accidentaly determined to some particular direction.

Jonson Ben c.1573-1637

The Poetaster

Ramp up my genius, be not retrograde;
But boldly nominate a spade a spade.

Joyce James 1882-1941

Ulysses

A man of genius makes no mistakes. His errors are volitional and are the portals of discovery.

Le Corbusier 1887-1965

Genius is personal, decided by fate, but it expresses itself by means of system. There is no work of art without system.

Levant Oscar

There is a thin line between genius and insanity.
I have erased this line.

Lewes G.H. 1817-1878

The Spanish Drama

Many a genius has been slow of growth. Oaks that flourish for a thousand years do not spring up into beauty like a reed.

Lichtenberg G.C. 1742-1799

Everyone is a genius at least once a year; a real genius has his original ideas closer together.

Lichtenberg G.C. 1742-1799

Sometimes men come by the name of genius in the same way that certain insects come by the name of centipede - not because they have a hundred feet, but because most people can't count above fourteen.

Lloyd Robert 1733-1764

„Shakespeare"

True Genius, like Armida's wand,
Can raise the spring from barren land.
While all the art of Imitation,
Is pilf'ring from the first creation.

Lowell James Russell 1819-1891

„A Fable for Critics"

There comes Poe with his raven like Barnaby Rudge,
Three-fifths of him genius, and two-fifths sheer fudge.

Lowell James Russell 1819-1891

Talent is that which is in a man's power; genius is that in whose power a man is.

Lund Robert S.

Every man of genius is considerably helped by being dead.

Melville Herman 1819-1891

Hawthorne and His Mosses

Genius, all over the world, stands hand in hand, and one shock of recognition runs the whole circle round.

Meredith Owen 1831-1891

„Last Words of a Sensitive Second-Rate Poet"

Genius does what it must, and Talent does what it can.

Mozart Wolfgang Amadeus 1756-1791

Neither a lofty degree of intelligence nor imagination nor both together go to the making of genius. Love, love, love, that is the soul of genius.

Nabokov Vladimir 1899-1977

Genius is an African who dreams up snow.

Nabokov Vladimir 1899-1977

Strong Opinions

I think like a genius, I write like a distinguished author, and I speak like a child.

Paderewski Ignacy Jan 1860-1941

Before I was a genius I was a drudge.

Péguy Charles 1873-1914

Short of genius, a rich man cannot imagine poverty.

Pitt William (The Elder) 1708-1778

I invoke the genius of the Constitution!

Pritchett V.S. 1900-1997

The mark of genius is an incessant activity of mind. Genius is a spiritual greed.

Reynolds Sir Joshua 1723-1792

Discourses on Art

Could we teach taste or genius by rules, they would be no longer taste and genius.

Stephen Sir James Fitzjames 1829-1894

Liberty, Equality and Fraternity

The way in which the man of genius rules is by persuading an efficient minority to coerce an indifferent and self-indulgent majority.

Stravinsky Igor 1882-1971

I know that the twelve notes in each octave and the varieties of rhythm offer me oppotunities that all of human genius will never exhaust.

Swift Jonathan 1667-1745

When a true genius appears in the world you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him.

Whitman Walt 1819-1892

There is that indescribable freshness and unconsciousness about an illiterate person that humbles and mocks the power of the noblest expressive genius.

Wilde Oscar 1854-1900

I've put my genius into my life; I've only put my talent into my works.

Wilde Oscar 1854-1900

I have nothing to declare except my genius.

Wilde Oscar 1854-1900

The public is wonderfully tolerant. It forgives everything except genius.

Yourcenar Marguerite 1903-1987

He had come to that time in his life (it varies from every man) when a human being gives himself over to his demon or to his genius, according to a mysterious law which orders him either to destroy or to surpass himself.

Genius quotes, quotations about genius