Genius Quotes - Page 40

• Anyone who has the temerity to write about Jane Austen is aware of [two] facts: first, that of all great writers she is the most difficult to catch in the act of greatness; second, that there are twenty-five elderly gentlemen living in the neighbourhood of London who resent any slight upon her genius as if it were an insult to the chastity of their aunts.

  Virginia Woolf

  Writing, Aunt, Greatness

  Virginia Woolf, Andrew McNeillie (1986). “The Essays of Virginia Woolf: 1925-1928”, Chatto & Windus

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• There is no way to be truly great in this world. We are impaled on the crook of conditioning. A fish that is in the water has no choice that he is. Genius would have it that we swim in sand. We are fish and we drown.

  James Dean

  Water, Choices, Swim

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• Patience is eternal genius

  Michelangelo

  Inspiration, Eternal

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• And is he honest who resists his genius or conscience only for the sake of present ease or gratification

  William Blake

  Ease, Sake, Honest

  William Blake (2008). “The Complete Poetry and Prose of William Blake”, p.39, Univ of California Press

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• Sam Hellerman is a genius!

  Frank Portman

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• A true genius admits that he/she knows nothing.

  Albert Einstein

  Inspirational, Spiritual, Kids

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• Some people think I'm a mythical genius, others think I'm a junkie madman.

  Keith Richards

  Music, Thinking, People

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• To accept your country without betraying it, you must love it for that which shows what it might become. America -- this monument to the genius of ordinary men and women, this place where hope becomes capacity, this long, halting turn of 'no' into the 'yes' -- needs citizens who love it enough to re-imagine and re-make it.

  Cornel West

  Country, Men, America

  FaceBook post by Dr. Cornel West from Mar 24, 2010

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• It has been said that Ernest Hemingway would rewrite scenes until they pleased him, often thirty or forty times. Hemingway, critics claimed, was a genius. Was it his genius that drove him to work hard, or was it hard work that resulted in works of genius?

  James N. Frey

  Hard Work, Scene, Thirty

  James N. Frey (2010). “How to Write a Damn Good Novel: A Step-by-Step No Nonsense Guide to Dramatic Storytelling”, p.160, Macmillan

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• the scientist's religious feeling takes the form of a rapturous amazement at the harmony of natural law, which reveals an intelligence of such superiority that, compared with it, all the systematic thinking and acting of human beings is utterly insignificant reflection. This feeling is the guiding principle of his life and work, in so far as he succeeds in keeping himself from the shackles of selfish desire. It is beyond question closely akin to that which has possessed the religious geniuses of all ages.

  Albert Einstein

  Religious, Selfish, Reflection

  Albert Einstein (2016). “The Albert Einstein Collection: Essays in Humanism, The Theory of Relativity, and The World As I See It”, p.182, Open Road Media

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• As nearly as possible in the spirit of Matthew Salinger, age one, urging a luncheon companion to accept a cool lima bean, I urge my editor, mentor and (heaven help him) closest friend, William Shawn, genius domus of The New Yorker, lover of the long shot, protector of the unprolific, defender of the hopelessly flamboyant, most unreasonably modest of born great artist-editors to accept this pretty skimpy-looking book.

  J. D. Salinger

  Love, Book, Artist

  "The Mistakes in This Essay Are My Own" by John Maxwell Hamilton, www.nytimes.com. April 15, 1990.

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• Geniuses are just people who had good mothers.

  R. Buckminster Fuller

  Mother, People, Spectacular

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• I don't know yet what I am capable of doing, but, by God, I have genius -- I know it too well to blush behind it.

  Thomas Wolfe

  Wells, Behinds, Knows

  Thomas Wolfe, Julia Elizabeth Wolfe (1968). “The letters of Thomas Wolfe to his mother”

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• Poor, unhappy Erik! Shall we pity him? Shall we curse him? He asked only to be 'some one,' like everybody else. But he was too ugly! And he had to hide his genius or use it to play tricks with, when, with an ordinary face, he would have been one of the most distinguished of mankind! He had a heart that could have held the entire empire of the world; and, in the end, he had to content himself with a cellar. Ah, yes, we must need pity the Opera ghost.

  Gaston Leroux

  Heart, Play, Unhappy

  Gaston Leroux (2016). “THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA (Mystery & Horror Series): Gothic Classic Based on True Events at the Paris Opera”, p.201, e-artnow

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• My genius is in my nostrils.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Friedrich Nietzsche (2010). “On the Genealogy of Morals and Ecce Homo”, p.326, Vintage

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• One of the cheapest commodities in the world is unfulfilled genius. All of us want to be known as a unique individual, the one who broke out of the pack. So, you offer yourself up as a sacrifice and what you’re afraid of is losing and being thrown back into the pack. One question taunts you. Do you want to have, or do you want to be?

  Leon Uris

  Sacrifice, Unique, World

  Leon Uris (1989). “Mitla Pass”, Bantam

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• Better is possible. It does not take genius. It takes diligence. It takes moral clarity. It takes ingenuity. And above all, it takes a willingness to try.

  Atul Gawande

  Trying, Doe, Moral

  Atul Gawande (2010). “Better: A Surgeon's Notes on Performance”, p.246, Profile Books

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• A few weeks later, I’m in a fluorescent-lit classroom in Chelsea awaiting the start of the official Mensa test. I’m sitting next to a guy who’s doing a series of elaborate neck stretches, like we’re about to engage in a vigorous rugby match. He’s neatly laid out four types of gum on his Formica desk: Juicy Fruit, Wrigley Spearmint, Big Red, and Eclipse. I hate this guy. I hope to God he’s not a genius.

  A. J. Jacobs

  Hate, Guy, Sitting

  A. J. Jacobs (2004). “The Know-It-All: One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World”, p.58, Simon and Schuster

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• 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.

  Fyodor Dostoevsky

  Ideas, Brain, Serious

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• Eccentricity is not, as some would believe, a form of madness. It is often a kind of innocent pride, and the man of genius and the aristocrat are frequently regarded as eccentrics because genius and aristocrat are entirely unafraid of and uninfluenced by the opinions and vagaries of the crowd.

  Edith Sitwell

  Believe, Pride, Men

  Edith Sitwell (2011). “Taken Care Of: An Autobiography”, p.114, A&C Black

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• The peril of every fine faculty is the delight of playing with it for pride. Talent is commonly developed at the expense of character, and the greater it grows, the more is the mischief. Talent is mistaken for genius, a dogma or system for truth, ambition for greatness, ingenuity for poetry, sensuality for art.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Art, Ambition, Character

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.2800, Delphi Classics

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• Genius disregards the boundaries of propriety. Genius is permitted to shout if shouting is productive.

  Lois Lowry

  Boundaries, Shouting, Disregard

  Lois Lowry (1977). “A Summer to Die”, p.98, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Art is the great democrat, calling forth creative genius from every sector of society, disregarding race or religion or wealth or color

  John F. Kennedy

  Art, Race, Color

  Kennedy, John F. (1963). “Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: John F. Kennedy, 1962”, p.847, Best Books on

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• As she walked along she dramatized the night. There was about it a wild, lawless charm that appealed to a certain wild, lawless strain hidden deep in Emily’s nature—the strain of the gypsy and the poet, the genius and the fool.

  Lucy Maud Montgomery

  Night, Fool, Gypsy

  Lucy Maud Montgomery (2015). “Emily Climbs”, p.141, Booklassic

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• The labours of men of genius, however erroneously directed, scarcely ever fail in ultimately turning to the solid advantage of mankind.

  Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

  Men, Failing, Advantage

  Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1823). “Frankenstein: ; Or, The Modern Prometheus”, p.75, DOSER Reads

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