Quotes About Genius

Among the many surprising things about the life of Albert Einstein was the trouble he had getting an academic job.

In fact, it was specifically for discovering the law of the photoelectric effect that Einstein would win his only Nobel Prize.

A decade after that, in 1915, he wrested from nature his crowning glory, one of the most beautiful theories in all of science, the general theory of relativity.

Einstein's great strength: he could look at a complex mathematical equation, which for others was merely an abstraction, and picture the physical reality that lay behind it.

Looking back at a century that will be remembered for its willingness to break classical bonds, and looking ahead to an era that seeks to nurture the creativity needed for scientific innovation, one person stands out as a paramount icon of our age: the kindly refugee from oppression whose wild halo of hair, twinkling eyes, engaging humanity, and extraordinary brilliance made his face a symbol and his name a synonym for genius.

Si alguna vez surge una raza mentalmente sobrehumana —dijo en cierta ocasión Edward Teller, el creador de la bomba de hidrógeno—, sus miembros se parecerán a Johnny von Neumann.

Walter Isaacson

Genius starts individual brilliance. It requires singular vision. But executing it often entails working with others. Innovation is a team sport. Creativity is a collaborative endeavor.

An inner joyousness, amounting to ecstasy, is the normal condition of the genius mind. Any lack of that joyousness develops body-destroying toxins. That inner ecstasy of the mind is the secret fountain of perpetual youth and strength in any man. He who finds it finds omnipotence and omniscience.

An idiot with a plan can beat a genius without a plan.

Thomas Edison said, "Genius is one percent inspiration, and ninety-nine percent perspiration.

The genius in you isn't seeking confirmation from others, but quiet space for its ideas to blossom.

Stay humble; don't interfere; respect your creative genius

From the union of power and money, from the union of power and secrecy, from the union of government and science, from the union of government and art, from the union of science and money, from the union of ambition and ignorance, from the union of genius and war, from the union of outer space and inner vacuity, the Mad Farmer walks quietly away.

A talent somewhat above mediocrity, shrewd and not too sensitive, is more likely to rise in the world than genius.

Why were drunks, almost always, persons of talent, personality, lovable qualities, gifts, brains, assets of all kinds (else why would anyone care?); why were so many brilliant men alcoholic?

In science, modesty and genius do not coexist well together. (In Washington, modesty and cleverness don't.) Einstein is perhaps the most famous exception to the rule.

the dangerous practice of stockjobbing, and would divert the genius of the nation from trade and industry. It would hold out a dangerous lure to decoy the unwary to their ruin, by making them part with the earnings of their labour for a prospect of imaginary wealth.

That old man's guitar had lost its voice. It was played out. So was he. But while his mind might have forgotten more music than most would ever know, his fingers had not. Where most folks saw an itinerant drunk, I tasted the residue of musical genius. At one time, this guy had been somebody.

Creativity is more than just being different. Anybody can play weird-- that's easy. What's hard is to be as simple as Bach. Making the simple complicated is commonplace--making the complicated simple, awesomely simple--that's creativity.

Love is rarer than genius itself. And friendship is rarer than love.

Here's a mystery for you. Renegade urban graffiti artist Banksy is clearly a guffhead of massive proportions, yet he's often feted as a genius straddling the bleeding edge of now. Why? Because his work looks dazzlingly clever to idiots. And apparently that'll do.

Man as an individual is a genius. But men in the mass form the headless monster, a great, brutish idiot that goes where prodded.

On se réconcilie avec un ennemi qui nous est inférieur pour les qualités du coeur ou de l'esprit ; on ne pardonne jamais à celui qui nous surpasse par l'âme et le génie.