"Every age might perhaps produce one or..." - Quote by Jonathan Swift
Every age might perhaps produce one or two geniuses, if they were not sunk under the censure and obloquy of plodding, servile, imitating pedants.
More by Jonathan Swift
“A poor spirit is poorer than a poor purse. A very few pounds a year would ease a man of the scandal of avarice.”
“My Lawyer being practiced almost from his Cradle in defending Falsehood; is quite out of his Element when he would be an Advocate for Justice, which as an Office unnatural, he always attempts with great Awkwardness if not with Ill-will.”
“As love without esteem is capricious and volatile; esteem without love is languid and cold.”
More on Genius
“Genius may have its limitations, but stupidity is not thus handicapped.”
“The life of great geniuses is nothing but a sublime storm.”
“Never mind the ridicule, never mind the defeat: up again, old heart!-it seems to say,-there is victory yet for all justice; and the true romance which the world exists to realize, will be the transformation of genius into practical power.”
More on Creativity
“My imagination is a twisted place.”
“There is nothing more fearful than imagination without taste.[Ger., Es ist nichts furchterlicher als Einbildungskraft ohne Geschmack.]”
“[Polythene Pam] was me, remembering a little event with a woman in Jersey, and a man who was England's answer to Allen Ginsberg, who gave us our first exposure - this is so long - you can't deal with all this. You see, everything triggers amazing memories. I met him when we were on tour and he took me back to his apartment and I had a girl and he had one he wanted me to meet. He said she dressed up in polythene, which she did. She didn't wear jackboots and kilts, I just sort of elaborated. Perverted sex in a polythene bag. Just looking for something to write about.”