Napoleon I of France (1769–1821) French general, First Consul and later Emperor of the French
Napoleon : In His Own Words (1916)
“Conceit spoils the finest genius.”
— Louisa May Alcott, book Little Women
Source: Little Women
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Louisa May Alcott174
American novelist 1832–1888Related quotes
Victor Hugo book William Shakespeare
Homère est un des génies qui résolvent ce beau problème de l’art, le plus beau de tous peut-être, la peinture vraie de l’humanité obtenue par le grandissement de l’homme, c’est-à-dire la génération du réel dans l’idéal.
Part I, Book II, Chapter II, Section I
William Shakespeare (1864)
Charles Rosen (1927–2012) American pianist and writer on music
Source: The Romantic Generation (1995), Ch. 12 : Schumann: Triumph and Failure of the Romantic Ideal
Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher
1820s, Critical and Miscellaneous Essays (1827–1855)
Context: Humor is properly the exponent of low things; that which first renders them poetical to the mind. 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. He who wants it, be his other gifts what they may, has only half a mind; an eye for what is above him, not for what is about him or below him. Now, among all writers of any real poetic genius, we cannot recollect one who, in this respect, exhibits such total deficiency as Schiller. In his whole writings there is scarcely any vestige of it, scarcely any attempt that way. His nature was without Humor; and he had too true a feeling to adopt any counterfeit in its stead. Thus no drollery or caricature, still less any barren mockery, which, in the hundred cases are all that we find passing current as Humor, discover themselves in Schiller. His works are full of labored earnestness; he is the gravest of all writers.
Auguste Rodin (1840–1917) French sculptor
Source: Rodin : the man and his art, with leaves from his notebook, 1917, p. 309
“Perhaps genius alone understands genius fully.”
Robert Schumann (1810–1856) German composer, aesthete and influential music critic
Sometimes translated as: Perhaps only genius fully understands genius
Original: Vielleicht versteht nur der Genius den Genius ganz, Robert Schumann, Advice to Young Musicians, translation of Musikalische Haus- und Lebens-Regeln, translated by Henry Hugo Pierson, Leipsic & New York: J. Schuberth & Co., 1860.
Alexander Pope (1688–1744) eighteenth century English poet
Le génie enfante, le goût conserve. Le goût est le bon sens du génie; sans le goût, le génie n'est qu'une sublime folie. <br class="br">François-René de Chateaubriand, in "Essai sur la littérature anglaise (1836): Modèles classiques http://visualiseur.bnf.fr/CadresFenetre?O=NUMM-101390&M=tdm. <br class="br">Misattributed
“The only genius that's worth anything is the genius for hard work.”
Kathleen Winsor (1919–2003) American author