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Quotes about genius

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Ever since the French revolution there has developed a vicious, cretinizing tendency to consider a genius (apart from his work) as a human being more or less the same in every sense as other ordinary mortals.
Salvador Dalí1904–1989Diary of a Genius (1964), p. 1
When one compares the talents one has with those of a Leibniz, one is tempted to throw away one’s books and go die quietly in the dark of some forgotten corner.
Denis Diderot1713–1784Oeuvres complètes, vol. 7, p. 678
Genius is present in every age, but the men carrying it within them remain benumbed unless extraordinary events occur to heat up and melt the mass so that it flows forth.
Denis Diderot1713–1784On Dramatic Poetry (1758)
Patience is a necessary ingredient of genius.
Benjamin Disraeli1804–1881Contarini Fleming (1832), Part 4, Chapter 5.
Inventors and geniuses have almost always been looked on as no better than fools at the beginning of their career, and very frequently at the end of it also.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky1821–1881The Idiot (1868–9), Part 3, Chapter 1 (tr. Constance Garnett, 1913)
- Technology
It may be that you are not yourself luminous, but you are a conductor of light. Some people without possessing genius have a remarkable power of stimulating it.
Arthur Conan Doyle1859–1930The Hound of the Baskervilles (1902), Chapter 1In context
- Inspiration
They say that genius is an infinite capacity for taking pains,” he remarked with a smile. “It’s a very bad definition, but it does apply to detective work.
Arthur Conan Doyle1859–1930A Study in Scarlet (1887), Part I, Chapter IIIIn context
- Work
Genius is one per cent inspiration, ninety-nine per cent perspiration.
Thomas Edison1847–1931
The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits.
Albert Einstein1879–1955
- Intelligence
In the judgment of the most competent living mathematicians, Fräulein Noether was the most significant creative mathematical genius thus far produced since the higher education of women began.
Albert Einstein1879–1955Obituary for Emmy Noether (1935)
- Women
To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men,⁠—that is genius.
Ralph Waldo Emerson1803–1882Self-Reliance (1841)In context
- Thinking
In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts; they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty.
Ralph Waldo Emerson1803–1882Self-Reliance (1841)In context
- Ideas
Genius goes around the world in its youth incessantly apologizing for having large feet. What wonder that later in life it should be inclined to raise those feet too swiftly to fools and bores.
F. Scott Fitzgerald1896–1940Notebook E, edited by Edmund Wilson (1945)
Genius without education is like silver in the mine.
Benjamin Franklin1706–1790Poor Richard’s Almanack
- Education
To apply oneself to great inventions, starting from the smallest beginnings, is no task for ordinary minds; to divine that wonderful arts lie hid behind trivial and childish things is a conception for superhuman talents.
Galileo Galilei1564–1642Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems (1632)
- Ideas