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Cesare Lombroso Quotes

Cesare Lombroso , was an Italian criminologist and physician, founder of the Italian School of Positivist Criminology, often referred to as the father of criminology. Lombroso rejected the established classical school, which held that crime was a characteristic trait of human nature. Instead, using concepts drawn from physiognomy, degeneration theory, psychiatry and Social Darwinism, Lombroso's theory of anthropological criminology essentially stated that criminality was inherited, and that someone "born criminal" could be identified by physical defects, which confirmed a criminal as savage or atavistic. These theories do not have widespread support by scientists in Western countries.

✵ 6. November 1835 – 19. October 1909
Cesare Lombroso photo
Cesare Lombroso: 7 quotes9 likes

Famous Cesare Lombroso Quotes

“Good sense travels on the well-worn paths; genius, never. And that is why the crowd, not altogether without reason, is so ready to treat great men as lunatics.”

Cesare Lombroso

Source: The Man of Genius (1891), p. x.

“Unfortunately, goodness and honor are rather the exception than the rule among exceptional men, not to speak of geniuses.”

Cesare Lombroso

Die Welt (1909); also in A Treasury of Jewish Quotations (1985) by Joseph L. Baron.

“The ignorant man always adores what he cannot understand.”

Cesare Lombroso

Pt. III, ch. 3.
The Man of Genius (1891)

“Genius is one of the many forms of insanity.”

Cesare Lombroso

As quoted in Born under Saturn: the character and conduct of artists : a documented history from antiquity to the French Revolution (1963) by Margot Wittkower.

“The appearance of a single great genius is more than equivalent to the birth of a hundred mediocrities.”

Cesare Lombroso

Pt. II, ch. 2.
The Man of Genius (1891)

“Klopstock was questioned regarding the meaningof a passage in his poem. He replied, "God and I both knew what it meant once; now God alone knows."”

Cesare Lombroso

Pt. I, ch. 2.
The Man of Genius (1891)

“"Lawsuit mania"… a continual craving to go to law against others, while considering themselves the injured party.”

Cesare Lombroso

Pt. III, ch. 3.
The Man of Genius (1891)

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