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Quotes about genius

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There is in every madman a misunderstood genius whose idea, shining in his head, frightened people, and for whom delirium was the only solution to the strangulation that life had prepared for him.
Antonin Artaud1896–1948Van Gogh, the Man Suicided by Society (1947)
What the age needs is not a genius — it has had geniuses enough, but a martyr, who in order to teach men to obey would himself be obedient unto death. What the age needs is awakening.
Søren Kierkegaard1813–1855The Journals of Søren Kierkegaard, 1840s (20 November 1847)
That books do not take the place of experience, and that learning is no substitute for genius, are two kindred phenomena; their common ground is that the abstract can never take the place of the perceptive.
Arthur Schopenhauer1788–1860The World as Will and Representation, vol. 2, ch. 7 (trans. E. F. J. Payne), p. 74
- Experience
Every child is in a way a genius; and every genius is in a way a child.
Arthur Schopenhauer1788–1860The World as Will and Representation, vol. 2, ch. 31 (“On Genius”)
- Children
Freud was, after all, a genius. You can tell that because people still hate him.
Jordan Petersonborn 196212 Rules for Life (2017), p. 243
I think like a genius, I write like a distinguished author, and I speak like a child.
Vladimir Nabokov1899–1977Strong Opinions (1973), Foreword
- Talking
- Writing
His talent was as natural as the pattern that was made by the dust on a butterfly’s wings.
Ernest Hemingway1899–1961A Moveable Feast (1964), Ch. 17, “Scott Fitzgerald”
- Writing
There are very few really brilliant men who have not had at least one madman among their ancestors.
André Maurois1885–1967Les silences du colonel Bramble (The Silence of Colonel Bramble) (1918), Ch. 12
The Genius of Poetry must work out its own salvation in a man: It cannot be matured by law and precept, but by sensation and watchfulness in itself.
John Keats1795–1821To James Hessey (9 October 1818)
- Poetry
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
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
It takes people a long time to learn the difference between talent and genius, especially ambitious young men and women.
Louisa May Alcott1832–1888Little Women (1868–1869), Part Second, Chapter XXVIIn context
- Youth
Talent isn’t genius, and no amount of energy can make it so. I want to be great, or nothing.
Louisa May Alcott1832–1888Little Women (1868–1869), Part Second, Chapter XXXIXIn context
- Motivation & Goals
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