Quotes About Genius

In the age of slaves, the freeman had still outnumbered them, and now, in the "age of freedom", for the first time liberty had fled from the majority. Genius, statecraft, the very power of leadership having become suspect in a world where the one essential criterion - mediocrity - gives us the comfortable assurance that no leader shall possess any qualities whatsoever above our own immediate comprehension, man has made sure that no man shall be free.

I have a notion that genius knows itself; that Dickinson chose her seclusion, knowing she was exceptional and knowing what she needed.

Passion is the genesis of genius.

The eye of genius has always a plaintive expression, and its natural language is pathos.

Messi is awesome. His creative ability is extraordinary, outside of normal patterns. He manages to see what others don't.

It seems like if they'd given Bob Dylan a pen and paper in the cradle that he would've come up with a great song. I'd love to write songs like that.

When you hear Bach or Mozart, you hear perfection. Remember that Bach, Mozart and Beethoven were great improvisers. I can hear that in their music.

Carl Reiner is perfection.

I was watching a movie called 'Perfume.' The book is really good, but the movie is really bad. My friend was making fun of it. He kept calling this obese guy a perfume genius. When I started putting my songs up on MySpace, I didn't know what was going to happen. I actually didn't put much thought into a name and just quickly used Perfume Genius.

During this earlier period of his activity Voltaire seems to have been trying - half unconsciously, perhaps - to discover and to express the fundamental quality of his genius.

A possible link between 'madness' and genius is one of the oldest and most persistent of cultural notions.

And there is quite a different sort of conversation around a fire than there is in the shadow of a beech tree.... [F]our dry logs have in them all the circumstance necessary to a conversation of four or five hours, with chestnuts on the plate and a jug of wine between the legs. Yes, let us love winter, for it is the spring of genius.

let us love winter, for it is the spring of genuis.

The world has many kings but only one Michelangelo.

Not only did I play at a high level, I learned that personal discipline is the indispensable key for accomplishing anything in this life. I have since come to understand even more that it is, in fact, the mother and handmaiden of what we call genius.

Nothing can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrecognized genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are the omnipotent. Calvin Coolidge 30th President

A mere knowledge of things can be had in a short enough time, but their spirit can only be acquired by centuries of training and self-control. Dominating nature from outside is a much simpler thing than making her your own in love's delight, which is a work of true genius. Your race has shown that genius, not by acquirements, but by creations; not by display of things, but by manifestation of its own inner being.

You're kidding. I thought all geniuses read Latin. Isn't that the international language for smart people?"-Shane (Glass Houses)

It is quite possible for the vulgar to be funny, but to succeed, it must rise to a certain genius.

It helps me to learn things in different languages, even if it's just phonetically, and to make myself vulnerable to other audiences by trying to reflect back to them the genius of their own cultures, and to do that, oftentimes, in new jazz settings, new arrangements. It's a way to show respect.

Usually the wacky people have the breakthroughs. The 'smart' people don't.

If I wait for the genius to come, it just doesn't arrive.

In the comics, there's a lot to sort of digest with Five. He's 58-years-old. He's trapped in this body. He has a genius level intellect. He's insane. He has a wife who's a mannequin. And when you're reading this on the page, it's just like, Wait, wait, what?'

There's something very funny about giving a menial task to a genius and watching him find so much complexity and overanalyse it to such a degree that the waitress from Nebraska working at the Cheesecake Factory has passed them all by.