Genius Quotes - Page 21

• Firmness of purpose is one of the most necessary sinews of character, and one of the best instruments of success. Without it, genius wastes its efforts in a maze of inconsistencies.

  Lord Chesterfield

  Success, Character, Effort

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• Genius is to other gifts what the carbuncle is to the precious stones. It sends forth its own light, whereas other stones only reflect borrowed light.

  Arthur Schopenhauer

  Light, Precious Stones, Borrowed

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• Every age might perhaps produce one or two geniuses, if they were not sunk under the censure and obloquy of plodding, servile, imitating pedants.

  Jonathan Swift

  Two, Age, Pedants

  Jonathan Swift (1761). “Works”, p.359

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• There are two kinds of genius. The first and highest may be said to speak out of the eternal to the present, and must compel its age to understand it; the second understands its age, and tells it what it wishes to be told.

  James Russell Lowell

  Two, Speaks Out, Wish

  Jared Sparks, Edward Everett, James Russell Lowell, Henry Cabot Lodge (1871). “The North American Review”, p.196

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• To do science today is to experience a dimension unique in contemporary working lives; the work promises something incomparable: the sense of living both personally and historically. That is why science now draws to itself all kinds of people - charlatans, mediocrities, geniuses - everyone who wants to touch the flame, feel alive to the time.

  Vivian Gornick

  Science, Unique, Flames

  Vivian Gornick (2013). “Women in Science: Then and Now”, p.16, The Feminist Press at CUNY

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• With the offspring of genius, the law of parturition is reversed; the throes are in the conception, the pleasure in the birth.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Law, Talent, Birth

  Charles Caleb Colton (1836). “Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.300

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• The man of genius is he and he alone who finds such joy in his art that he will work at it come hell or high water.

  Stendhal

  Leadership, Art, Men

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• Life is not about discovering our talents; it is about pushing our talents to the limit and discovering our genius.

  Robert Breault

  Graduation, Motivation, Inspiration

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• The growing complexity of science, technology, and organization does not imply either a growing knowledge or a growing need for knowledge in the general population. On the contrary, the increasingly complex processes tend to lead to increasingly simple and easily understood products. The genius of mass production is precisely in its making more products more accessible, both economically and intellectually to more people.

  Thomas Sowell

  Technology, Simple, Growing Knowledge

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• Innovators and creators are persons who can to a higher degree than average accept the condition of aloneness. They are more willing to follow their own vision, even when it takes them far from the mainland of the human community. Unexplored places do not frighten them- or not, at any rate, as much as they frighten those around them. This is one of the secrets of their power. That which we call genius has a great deal to do with courage and daring, a great deal to do with nerve.

  Nathaniel Branden

  Average, Community, Vision

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• To see things in the seed, that is genius.

  Laozi

  Nature, Educational, Intelligence

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• Persons of genius, it is true, are, and are always likely to be, a small minority; but in order to have them, it is necessary to preserve the soil in which they grow.

  John Stuart Mill

  Order, Soil, Minorities

  John Stuart Mill, Jeremy Bentham, John Troyer (2003). “The Classical Utilitarians: Bentham and Mill”, p.200, Hackett Publishing

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• Genius is finding the invisible link between things.

  Vladimir Nabokov

  Links, Invisible, Findings

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• Plague might be a social incompetent, but he was unquestionably a genius.

  Steig Larsson

  Might, Social, Plague

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• The greatest products of architecture are less the works of individuals than of society; rather the offspring of a nation's effort, than the inspired flash of a man of genius.

  Victor Hugo

  Wisdom, Men, Effort

  Victor Hugo (2010). “The Works of Victor Hugo”, p.413, BookCaps Study Guides

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• A cat knows how to be comfortable, how to get the people around it to serve it. In a tranquil domestic situation, the cat is a veritable manipulative genius. It seeks the soft, it seeks the warm, it prefers the quiet and it loves to be full. It displays, when it gets its own way in these matters, a degree of contentment we would all like to emulate.

  Roger Caras

  Cat, People, Contentment

  Roger A. Caras (1987). “A celebration of cats”, Fireside

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• ...one of the traits of genius is not to drag its thought through the rut worn by vulgar minds.

  Stendhal

  Mind, Ruts, Drag

  Stendhal (1969). “Red and black: a new translation, backgrounds and sources, criticism”

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• Often-times it's madness, not genius that moves the world forward. Who else but the mad would reach so far, stretching for the impossible and, in so doing, prove the impossible possible!

  James Rollins

  Moving, Mad, World

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• All the greatest men are maniacs. They are possessed by a mania which drives them forward towards thier goal. The great scientists, the philosophers, the religious leaders - all maniacs. What else but a blind singlenee of purpose could have given focus to thier genius, would have kept them in the groove of purpose. Mania... is as priceless as genius.

  Ian Fleming

  Religious, Men, Goal

  "Dr. No". Book by Ian Fleming, ch. 15: Pandora's Box, 1958.

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• There's nothing wrong with being a genius who can fascinate the young. Rather, there's something wrong with the young who can't be fascinated by a genius.

  Julian Barnes

  Young, Fascinated

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• A woman may be beautiful but have poor character. A man may be a business genius, making money left and right, but lack common courtesy, sensitivity, and compassion.

  Myles Munroe

  Beautiful, Character, Men

  Myles Munroe (2005). “Waiting and Dating: A Sensible Guide to a Fulfilling Love Relationship”, p.69, Destiny Image Publishers

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• Persistence isn't very glamorous. If genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration, then as a culture we tend to lionize the one percent. We love its flash and dazzle. But great power lies in the other ninety-nine percent.

  Susan Cain

  Lying, Inspiration, Persistence

  Susan Cain (2012). “Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking”, p.169, Broadway Books

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• I intend to work for this dance of the future. I do not know whether I have the necessary qualities; I may have neither genius nor talent nor temperament. But I know that I have a Will; and will and energy sometimes prove greater than either genius or talent or temperament.

  Isadora Duncan

  Dance, Dancing, Quality

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• A prince or general can best demonstrate his genius by managing a campaign exactly to suit his objectives and his resources, doing neither too much nor too little.

  Carl von Clausewitz

  Campaigns, Littles, Too Much

  Carl von Clausewitz (2008). “On War”, p.177, Princeton University Press

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• Genius is supposed to be a power of producing excellences which are put of the reach of the rules of art: a power which no precepts can teach, and which no industry can acquire.

  Joshua Reynolds

  Art, Teaching, Science

  sir Joshua Reynolds (1853). “Discourses on the Fine Arts Delivered to the Students of the Royal Academy”, p.22

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