Genius Quotes

It is impossible that a genius - at least a literary genius - can ever be discovered by his intimates; they are so close to him that he is out of focus to them and they can't get at his proportions; they can't perceive that there is any considerable difference between his bulk and their own.

A man of talent will strive for money and reputation; but the spring that moves genius to the production of its works is not as easy to name

A man cannot free himself by any self-denying ordinances, neither by water nor potatoes, nor by violent possibilities, by refusing to swear, refusing to pay taxes, by going to jail, or by taking another man's crops or squatting on his land. By none of these ways can he free himself; no, nor by paying his debts with money; only by obedience to his own genius.

Don't dissipate your powers; strive to concentrate them. Genius thinks it can do whatever it sees others doing, but it will surely repent of every ill-judged outlay.

But genius looks forward: the eyes of men are set in his forehead, not in his hindhead: man hopes: genius creates.

In every idea of genius or in every new human idea, or, more simply still, in every serious human idea born in anyone's brain, there is something that cannot possibly be conveyed to others.

Passion is the genesis of genius.

If the men of wit and genius would resolve never to complain in their works of critics and detractors, the next age would not know that they ever had any.

One must indeed be ignorant of the methods of genius to suppose that it allows itself to be cramped by forms. Forms are for mediocrity, and it is fortunate that mediocrity can act only according to routine. Ability takes its flight unhindered.

The genius is a genius by the first look he casts on any object. Is his eye creative? Does he not rest in angles and colors, but beholds the design,--he will presently undervalue the actual object.

Not out of those, on whom systems of education have exhausted their culture, comes the helpful giant to destroy the old or to build the new, but out of unhandselled savage nature, out of terrible Druids and Berserkirs, come at last Alfred and Shakespeare.

The man of genius, like a dog with a bone, or the slave who has swallowed a diamond, or a patient with the gravel, sits afar and retired, off the road, hangs out no sign of refreshment for man and beast, but says, by all possible hints and signs, I wish to be alone,--good-by,--fare-well. But the Landlord can afford to live without privacy.

We are as much informed of a writer's genius by what he selects as by what he originates. We read the quotation with his eyes, andfind a new and fervent sense; as a passage from one of the poets, well recited, borrows new interest from the rendering. As the journals say, "the italics are ours.

No doubt Carlyle has a propensity to exaggerate the heroic in history, that is, he creates you an ideal hero rather than another thing.... Yet what were history if he did not exaggerate it? How comes it that history never has to wait for facts, but for a man to write it? The ages may go on forgetting the facts never so long, he can remember two for every one forgotten. The musty records of history, like the catacombs, contain the perishable remains, but only in the breast of genius are embalmed the souls of heroes.

Genius has no taste for weaving sand.

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

What is it men love in Genius, but its infinite hope, which degrades all it has done? Genius counts all its miracles poor and short. Its own idea it never executed.

Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.

Feeble verses are those which sin not against rules, but against genius.

Genius is making complex ideas simple, not making simple ideas complex

What is Genius?- To aspire to a lofty aim and to will the means to that aim.

The Artist is he who detects and applies the law from observation of the works of Genius, whether of man or Nature. The Artisan is he who merely applies the rules which others have detected.

So much of our time is spent in preparation, so much in routine, and so much in retrospect, that the amount of each person's genius is confined to a very few hours.

Genius and madness have something in common: both live in a world that is different from that which exists for everyone else.

Genius: the ability to prolong one's childhood.

Let the minor genius go his light way and enjoy his life - the great nature cannot so live, he is never really in holiday mood, even though he often plucks flowers by the wayside and ties them into knots and garlands like little children and lays out on a sunny morning.

Genius is not a retainer to any emperor.

The woman and the genius do not work. Up to now, woman has been mankind's supreme luxury. In all those moments when we do our best, we do not work. Work is merely a means to these moments.

Men of lofty genius sometimes accomplish the most when they work least, for their minds are occupied with their ideas and the perfection of their conceptions, to which they afterwards give form.

Genius is talent set on fire by courage.

The man of genius inspires us with a boundless confidence in our own powers.

Lord Byron is only great as a poet; as soon as he reflects he is a child.

His judgement demonstrates that one can be a genius and understand nothing of an art that is not one's own.

Genius may have its limitations, but stupidity is not thus handicapped.

Sex energy is the creative energy of all creative geniuses.

Inventors and geniuses have almost always been looked on as no better than fools at the beginning of their career, and very frequently at the end of it also.

No nation has produced anything like his equal. There is no quality in the human mind, there is no class of topics, there is no region of thought, in which he has not soared or descended, and none in which he has not said the commanding word.

I used to say to my auntie, 'You throw my fu*kin' poetry out, and you'll regret it when I'm famous,' and she threw the bast*rd stuff out. I never forgave her for not treating me like a fu*kin' genius or whatever I was when I was a child.

Two per cent. is genius, and ninety-eight per cent. is hard work.

See the genius in everyone you encounter. Just as the mountain cannot crack a nut though it can carry a forest on its back, so too does every living creature have its own perfection built into it.

No age or condition is without its heroes . The least incapable general in a nation is its Cæsar, the least imbecile statesman its Solon , the least confused thinker its Socrates , the least commonplace poet its Shakespeare .

You may have genius. The contrary is, of course, probable.

Never imitate the eccentricities of genius, but toil after it in its truer flights. They are not so easy to follow, but they lead to higher regions.

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

THE SUFFERING OF GENIUS AND ITS VALUE. The artistic genius desires to give pleasure, but if his mind is on a very high plane he does not easily find anyone to share his pleasure; he offers entertainment but nobody accepts it. That gives him, in certain circumstances, a comically touching pathos; for he has no right to force pleasure on men. He pipes, but none will dance: can that be tragic?

Men of genius sometimes accomplish most when they work least, for they are thinking out inventions.

I have nothing to declare except my genuis.

Every great genius has an admixture of madness.

Accept your genius and say what you think.

Genius: The capacity to see and to express what is simple, simply!

All geniuses die young.

The most attractive class of people are those who are powerful obliquely, and not by the direct stroke: men of genius, but not yetaccredited: one gets the cheer of their light, without paying too great a tax.

If a man knows the law, find out, though he live in a pine shanty, and resort to him. And if a man can pipe or sing, so as to wrap the imprisoned soul in an elysium; or can paint a landscape, and convey into souls and ochres all the enchantments of Spring or Autumn; or can liberate and intoxicate all people who hear him with delicious songs and verses; it is certain that the secret cannot be kept; the first witness tells it to a second, and men go by fives and tens and fifties to his doors.

If you are a genius and unsuccessful, everybody treats you as if you were a genius, but when you come to be successful, when you commence to earn money, when you are really successful, then your family and everybody no longer treats you like a genius, they treat you like a man who has become successful.

Genius is the capacity of avoiding hard work.

Many ingenious lovely things are gone / That seemed sheer miracle to the multitude.

There is suffering in the light; in excess it burns. Flame is hostile to the wing. To burn and yet to fly, this is the miracle of genius.

The qualities of creativity and genius are within you, awaiting your decision to match up with the power of intention.

A man cannot wheedle nor overawe his Genius. It requires to be conciliated by nobler conduct than the world demands or can appreciate.

When nature has work to be done, she creates a genius to do it.