Quotes About Genius

If the man has genius ... he certainly has neither the constancy nor the patience which sanctifies it, and makes it a thing divine. He endeavors to impose on the world by placing himself on a level which he does nothing to maintain. True talent, pains-taking and honorable talent does not act thus. Men who possess such talent follow their path courageously; they accept its pains and penalties, and don't cover them with tinsel.

If men of imagination and good sense, like you, desert one camp only to join the other; if they cannot keep to the happy medium between two forms of extravagance, we shall always be exposed to the satire of the sophists, who deny all progress, who compare the genius of man to this tablecloth, which, being too short to cover the whole of Signor Giardini's table, decks one end at the expense of the other.

Thought alone holds the tradition of the bygone life. The endless legacy of the past to the present is the secret source of human genius.

Madness that is so nearly allied to genius can know no cure in this world.

There have been only two geniuses in the world, Willie Mays and Willie Shakespeare. But, darling, I think you'd better put Shakespeare first.

Maybe he's a savant," Hannah mused from the pool. "One of those guys who's brilliant at one thing and stupid at everything else.

She had come to terms with her lack of beauty, but never with her lack of genius in the single thing she had ever wanted.

On the occasion of a visit to Jane Austen's childhood home in Steventon, Hampshire: "I put my hand down on Jane's desk and bring it up covered with dust. Oh that some of her genius might rub off on me! One would have imagined the devoted female custodian going round with her duster at least every other day.

Ox, at an early age a Chinese genius gazes at the path that lies ahead and reaches for a wine jar," Master Li said. "Is it any wonder that our greatest men have lurched rather than walked across the landscape as they hiccuped their way into history?

Maxwell was not only one of the most brilliant and influential scientists who ever lived but an altogether fine and engaging man. And

The age is mad and talks nonsense in all areas, but above all where art is concerned, because of the heretical confusion between good and beauty. Everyone who seeks the pure ideal where art is concerned is regarded as a heretic in the eyes of the Muse and of art. So I'll speak of the idealist painters as if they were ill; sometimes they reveal genius, but it is a genius that is ailing.

It must not be thought that the devil tempts only men of genius. He doubtless scorns imbeciles, but he does not disdain their assistance. Quite the contrary, he founds great hopes on them.

A man who from the beginning has long been soaked in the languid atmosphere of a woman, the scent of her hands, her bosom, her knees, her hair, her lithe and flowing clothes ... has acquired a delicacy of skin, a refinement of tone, a kind of androgyny without which the toughest and most virile of geniuses remains, when it comes to artistic perfection, an incomplete being.

Genius is childhood recaptured.

Genius is childhood recalled at will.

Loner heroes do appeal to that part of yourself that feels as though your genius hasn't been recognised.

A neurotic can perfectly well be a literary genius, but his greatest danger is always that he will not recognize when he is dull.

T Bone is genius. The way they've recorded my voice and the instrumentation to these songs is really quite extraordinary.

Don Cornelius was a genius. He created a show where he was breaking artists' songs. If you were on his show, he made the consumer want to go out and purchase your music. He will be greatly missed. If they ever try to recreate what he did, it has to been done right, authentic and real with soul! That's what Don displayed.

If I was to meet Lou Reed or Bob Dylan, I would be totally helpless. Writers and musicians make me feel completely starstruck.

Genius is always allowed some leeway, once the hammer has been pried from its hands and the blood has been cleaned up.

I have learned that any fool can write a bad ad, but that it takes a real genius to keep his hands off a good one.

I've learned any fool can write a bad ad, but it takes a real genius to keep his hands off a good one.

I consider myself to be a genius who happens to play chess.