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Quotes about genius

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Books are the legacies that a great genius leaves to mankind, which are delivered down from generation to generation, as presents to the posterity of those who are yet unborn.
Joseph Addison1672–1719The Spectator (1711–1714), No. 166 (10 September 1711)
- Reading
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
No great genius has ever existed without some touch of madness.
Aristotle384–322 BC
But the greatest thing by far is to have a command of metaphor. This alone cannot be imparted by another; it is the mark of genius, for to make good metaphors implies an eye for resemblances.
Aristotle384–322 BCPoetics, 1459a.4
- Writing
Others abide our question. Thou art free.
We ask and ask — Thou smilest and art still,
Out-topping knowledge.
Matthew Arnold1822–1888The Strayed Reveller, and Other Poems (1849), “Shakespeare”, l. 1
- Poetry
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)
One is not born a genius, one becomes a genius; and the feminine situation has up to the present rendered this becoming practically impossible.
Simone de Beauvoir1908–1986The Second Sex (1949), Bk. I, Pt. 2, Ch. 8: Since the French Revolution: the Job and the Vote, p. 133
- Women
Improvement makes straight roads; but the crooked roads without improvement are roads of genius.
William Blake1757–1827Proverbs of Hell, Line 66
Talent does what it can; genius does what it must.
Edward Bulwer-Lytton1803–1873
The man of Humor sees common life, even mean life, under the new light of sportfulness and love; whatever has existence has a charm for him. Humor has justly been regarded as the finest perfection of poetic genius.
Thomas Carlyle1795–1881“Schiller”, first published in Fraser’s Magazine (1831).
- Humor
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread:
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drank the milk of Paradise.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge1772–1834Kubla Khan (1816), Kubla KhanIn context
- Poetry
Fortune has rarely condescended to be the companion of genius.
IDIsaac D'Israeli1766–1848Curiosities of Literature, Poverty of the Learned
- Luck
Every production of genius must be the production of enthusiasm.
IDIsaac D'Israeli1766–1848Curiosities of Literature (1791–1834), Solitude.
Mediocrity can talk, but it is for genius to observe.
IDIsaac D'Israeli1766–1848Curiosities of Literature (1791–1834)
- Talking