Galileo Galilei on genius

I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.

Mathematics is the language with which God has written the universe.

Philosophy is written in this grand book⁠—I mean the Universe⁠—which stands continually open to our gaze, but it cannot be understood unless one first learns to comprehend the language and interpret the characters in which it is written. It is written in the language of mathematics, and its characters are triangles, circles and other geometrical figures, without which it is humanly impossible to understand a single word of it.

Not great understanding alone, not intelligence alone, nor both together, make genius. Love! Love! Love! that is the soul of genius.

Genius without education is like silver in the mine.

Benjamin Franklin1706–1790Poor Richard’s Almanack

• Education

Genius is one per cent inspiration, ninety-nine per cent perspiration.

Thomas Edison1847–1931