Hughey, Aaron W. (book reviewer), "Book review: ‘Quiet’ suggests introverts are undervalued by society," The Daily News (Kentucky; BGDailyNews.com), July 15, 2012.
“Genius is 1% talent and 99% percent hard work…”
Source: Blood in My Eye (1971), p. 9
“Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration.”
Spoken statement (c. 1903); published in Harper's Monthly (September 1932).
Variants:
None of my inventions came by accident. I see a worthwhile need to be met and I make trial after trial until it comes. What it boils down to is one per cent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.
Statement in a press conference (1929), as quoted in Uncommon Friends: Life with Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Harvey Firestone, Alexis Carrel & Charles Lindbergh (1987) by James D. Newton, p. 24.
Variant forms without early citation: "Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration. Accordingly, a 'genius' is often merely a talented person who has done all of his or her homework."
"Genius: one percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration."
1900s
Variant: Genius is one per cent inspiration and ninety nine perspiration.
"Of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1%" http://www.vanityfair.com/society/features/2011/05/top-one-percent-201105, Vanity Fair, May 2011.
2016, United Nations Address (September 2016)
Context: A world in which one percent of humanity controls as much wealth as the other 99 percent will never be stable. I understand that the gaps between rich and poor are not new, but just as the child in a slum today can see the skyscraper nearby, technology now allows any person with a smartphone to see how the most privileged among us live and the contrast between their own lives and others. Expectations rise, then, faster than governments can deliver, and a pervasive sense of injustice undermine people’s faith in the system. [... ] economies are more successful when we close the gap between rich and poor, and growth is broadly based. And that means respecting the rights of workers so they can organize into independent unions and earn a living wage. It means investing in our people -- their skills, their education, their capacity to take an idea and turn it into a business. It means strengthening the safety net that protects our people from hardship and allows them to take more risks -- to look for a new job, or start a new venture.
On Human Nature (1978), Ch.4 Emergence
“That adage about genius being 5 percent inspiration and 95 perspiration - it's true.”
Yanni in Words. Miramax Books. Co-author David Rensin
“Apparently nothing will ever teach these people that the other 99 percent of the population exist.”
Source: Diaries
Ch. 24 http://historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/zinncomrev24.html
A People's History of the United States (1980)
Context: One percent of the nation owns a third of the wealth. The rest of the wealth is distributed in such a way as to turn those in the 99 percent against one another: small property owners against the propertyless, black against white, native-born against foreign-born, intellectuals and professionals against the uneducated and the unskilled. These groups have resented one another and warred against one another with such vehemence and violence as to obscure their common position as sharers of leftovers in a very wealthy country.
