Quotes About Genius

books on Strategies of Genius.

I can't change overnight into a serious literary author. You can't compare apples to oranges. William Faulkner was a great literary genius. I am not.

Russell suggested he write an essay during the vacation on any philosophical subject. He did so, and when Russell had read the first sentence, he was persuaded that Wittgenstein was a man of genius

Isaac looked for a grand patter to the Universe. He spent long periods lost in thought. Then suddenly he dashed off several pages without pausing.

The real accomplishment of modern science and technology consists in taking ordinary men, informing them narrowly and deeply and then, through appropriate organization, arranging to have their knowledge combined with that of other specialized but equally ordinary men. This dispenses with the need for genius. The resulting performance, though less inspiring, is far more predictable.

Since when was genius found respectable?

The denial of contemporary genius is the rule rather than the exception. No one counts the eagles in the nest, till there is a rush of wings; and lo! they are flown.

A cheerful genius suits the times, / And all true poets laugh unquenchably / Like Shakespeare and the gods.

I cannot believe of any woman that she can think of fame first. A woman of genius may be absorbed, indeed, in the exercise of an active power, engrossed in the charges of the course and the combat; but this is altogether different to a vain and bitter longing for prizes, and what prizes, oh, gracious heavens! The empty cup of cold metal! so cold, so empty to a woman with a heart.

It is well worth reading, and worth wondering over. D'Israeli, who is a man of genius, has written, nevertheless, books which will live longer, and move deeper. But everybody should read 'Coningsby.' It is a sign of the times.

Also, in every advancement of the world hitherto, the individual has led the masses. Thus, to elicit individuality has been the object of the best political institutions and governments. Now, in these new theories, the individual is ground down into the multitude, and society must be 'moving all together if it moves at all' — restricting the very possibility of progress by the use of the lights of genius. Genius is always individual.

It is to the honour of America that it recognised from the first the genius of Miss Barrett; and for a large part of her life some of the closest of her personal and literary connections were with Americans. The same is true in both respects of Robert Browning.

And then I had my greatest stroke of genius since that ham sandwich with pickles that time.

Sometimes, laziness was the next best thing to genius.

The charm, one might say the genius, of memory is that it is choosy, chancy and temperamental; it rejects the edifying cathedral and indelibly photographs the small boy outside, chewing a hunk of melon in the dust.

Ever notice how really smart people enjoy making silly jokes?

Genius creates from the heart and when men put love into their work there is power in it, there is a soul in the body.

This is not an age favourable to the development of artistic genius; it may be that for a time all forms of art will pass away into the domination of those who think that a good picture can be painted only if the artist's political views record with theirs, and that it is only possible to write a good novel provided the author follows the rules they have laid down.

Olaf was a genius. This, she realized, watching the snowman struggle, was love. Olaf had been willing to put himself in danger because he didn't want to see her get hurt. Love wasn't the canned romantic declarations. That was nothing but fluff. That was what Hans had thrown at her and what she had mistaken for love. Pure, true love was what Olaf was showing her right now - sacrifice.

Poetry, architecture, music, philosophy and mathematics all intrigued him and he was patron of them all, surrounding himself with men of genius: the poet and satirist Juvenal, the architect Apollodorus, the historians Tacitus, Suetonius and Arrian, the writers Pliny the Younger, Pausanias and Plutarch.

Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself; but talent instantly recognizes genius.

Ficino offered the age a new intellectual master. "Aristotle's genius is purely human," he wrote, while "Plato's is both human and divine.

The seventeenth century would be the great "century of genius" in science. It was the age of Galileo, Harvey, Boyle, and of course Newton. The political and social systems of Europe, however, seemed to have stalled out. Through his dark reading of Aristotle, Machiavelli had left behind a dilemma and a paradox.

The principal mark of genius is not perfection but originality, the opening of new frontiers.