GENIUS QUOTES
quotations about genius
Genius is a steed too fiery for the plow or the cart.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
I have sometimes amused myself by endeavouring to fancy what would be the fate of an individual gifted, or rather accursed, with an intellect very far superior to that of his race. Of course he would be conscious of his superiority; nor could he (if otherwise constituted as man is) help manifesting his consciousness. Thus he would make himself enemies at all points. And since his opinions and speculations would widely differ from those of all mankind -- that he would be considered a madman is evident. How horribly painful such a condition! Hell could invent no greater torture than that of being charged with abnormal weakness on account of being abnormally strong.
EDGAR ALLAN POE
"Marginalia"
Thousands of geniuses live and die undiscovered -- either by themselves or by others.
MARK TWAIN
The Autobiography of Mark Twain
Almost everyone is born a genius and buried an idiot.
CHARLES BUKOWSKI
Notes of a Dirty Old Man
When Nature has work to be done, she creates a genius to do it.
RALPH WALDO EMERSON
Method of Nature
In the republic of mediocrity genius is dangerous. A great soul appears and fills the world with new and marvelous harmonies. In his words is the old Promethean flame. The heart of nature beats and throbs in his line. The respectable prudes and pedagogues sound the alarm.
ROBERT G. INGERSOLL
Liberty in Literature
When a great genius appears in the world you may know him by this sign; that the dunces are all in confederacy against him.
JONATHAN SWIFT
Abolishing Christianity and Other Essays
The reason why a work of genius is not easily admired from the first is that the man who has created it is extraordinary, that few other men resemble him. It is his work itself that, by fertilising the rare minds capable of understanding it, will make them increase and multiply.
MARCEL PROUST
Within a Budding Grove
I have known no man of genius who had not to pay, in some affliction or defect either physical or spiritual, for what the gods had given him.
MAX BEERBOHM
And Even Now
One might expect, perhaps, that a man full of genius could pasture in the greatness of his own thoughts, and renounce the cheap approbation of the crowd which he despises; yet he succumbs to the more powerful impulse of the herd instinct. His searching and his finding, his call, belong to the herd.
CARL JUNG
Psychology of the Unconscious
The fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.
CARL SAGAN
Broca's Brain: Reflections on the Romance of Science
We mustn't forget how quickly the visions of genius become the canned goods of intellectuals.
SAUL BELLOW
Herzog
There is no more light in a genius than in any other honest man -- but he has a particular kind of lens to concentrate this light into a burning point.
LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN
Culture and Value
We know that the nature of genius is to provide idiots with ideas twenty years later.
LOUIS ARAGON
Treatise on Style
Genius is nothing more nor less than childhood recaptured at will.
CHARLES BAUDELAIRE
The Painter of Modern Life and Other Essays
Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.
THOMAS EDISON
Life
A man of genius makes no mistakes. His errors are volitional and are the portals of discovery.
JAMES JOYCE
Ulysses
Genius is fine for the ignition spark, but to get there someone has to see that the radiator doesn't leak and no tire is flat.
REX STOUT
The Doorbell Rang
There's a fine line between genius & crazy ... I like to use that line as a jump rope.
ANONYMOUS
Towering genius disdains a beaten path. It seeks regions hitherto unexplored.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
speech, Jan. 27, 1838