Quotations about Genius

(Note: the categories got messed up, so these results may be
temporarily off, probably in an amusing manner...)

30 Quotes Found

"Do not worry about your difficulties in mathematics. I assure you that mine are far greater."
	-Albert Einstein, Nobel laureate and international physicist
"Great men grow tired of contentedness."
	-Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor of France
"There is no method, except to be very intelligent."
	-T. S. Eliot
"Men of genius are often dull and inert in society; as the blazing meteor, when it descends to earth, is only a stone."
	-Longfellow
"However brilliant an action may be, it should not be accounted great when it is not the result of great purpose."
	-Duc de La Rochefoucauld
"There are two kinds of geniuses. The characteristic of the one is roaring, but the lightning is meagre and rarely strikes; the other kind is characterized by reflection by which it constrains itself or restrains the roaring. But the lightning is all the more intense; with the speed and sureness of lightning it hits the selected particular points - and is fatal."
	-Kierkegaard
"The case with most men is that they go out into life with one or another accidental characteristic of personality of which they say: Well, this is the way I am. I cannot do otherwise. Then the world gets to work on them and thus the majority of men are ground into conformity. In each generation a small part cling to their "I cannot do otherwise" and lose their minds. Finally there are a very few in each generation who in spite of all life's terrors cling with more and more inwardness to this "I cannot do otherwise". They are the geniuses. Their "I cannot do otherwise" is an infinite thought, for if one were to cling firmly to a finite thought, he would lose his mind."
	-Kierkegaard
"Where is the lightning to lick you with its tongue? Where is the madness with which you should be cleansed? Behold, I show you the Superman. He is this lightning, he is this madness."
	-Friedrich Nietzsche, Philosopher, in Zarathrustra
"Geniuses are like thunderstorms. They go against the wind, terrify people, cleanse the air."
	-Kierkegaard
"A genius is one who can do anything except make a living."
	-Joey Adams
"Genius is born, not paid."
	-Oscar Wilde
"Genius borrows nobly."
	-Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Great geniuses have the shortest biographies. Their cousins can tell you nothing about them."
	-Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Talent, lying in the understanding, is often inherited; genius, being the action of reason or imagination, rarely or never."
	-Samuel T. Coleridge
"Genius is not so much about new ideas as it is about clarity of ideas. Two people can have the same idea yet it will be genius in the one and mediocrity in the other."
	-Kevin Solway
"Genius is the ability to act rightly without precedent - the power to do the right thing the first time."
	-Elbert Hubbard
"The ability of someone to choose and arrange the details of their creative field guided by a vision is a major hallmark of a genius."
	-John Briggs
"Philosophy becomes poetry and science imagination, in the enthusiasm of genius."
	-Benjamin Disraeli, British statesman and prime minister
"Both wit and understanding are trifles without integrity. The ignorant peasant without fault is greater than the philosopher with many. What is genius or courage without a heart?"
	-Oliver Goldsmith
"A man of genius is unbearable, unless he possesses at least two things besides: gratitude and purity."
	-Friedrich Nietzsche, Philosopher
"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."
	-Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Composer
"The first and last thing required of genius is the love of truth."
	-Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe, German dramatist, poet & novelist
"The poets' scrolls will outlive the monuments of stone. Genius survives; all else is claimed by death."
	-Edmund Spenser, Poet
"Next to possessing genius one's self is the power of appreciating it in others."
	-Mark Twain, Author
"Two sorts of writers possess genius: those who think, and those who cause others to think."
	-Ralph Waldo Emerson
"In every work of genius, we recognize our own rejected thoughts; they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty."
	-Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Genius does what it must, and Talent does what it can."
	-Owen Meredith Earl of Lytton
"Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration."
	-Thomas Edison, Inventor, often worked 40 hours straight
"Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it."
	-Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe, German dramatist, poet & novelist
"Through our scientific genius, we have made this world a neighborhood; now through our moral and spiritual development, we must make of it a brotherhood."
	-Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929 - 1968), American civil rights leader