“The principal mark of genius is not perfection but originality, the opening of new frontiers.”

Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Arthur Koestler 25
Hungarian-British author and journalist 1905–1983

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“It is the privilege of true genius, and certainly of the genius that opens a new road, to make without punishment great mistakes.”

"Siècle de Louis XIV," ch. 32 (1751), qtd. in Arthur Schopenhauer, "The World as Will and Representation," Criticism of the Kantian philosophy (1818)
Citas
Original: (fr) C'est le privilège du vrai génie, et surtout du génie qui ouvre une carrière, de faire impunément de grandes fautes.

“New plains frontier was politically organized and opened and settled with little, if any, heed to its natural features of climate and land cover.”

John M. Gaus (1894–1969) American political scientist

John Merriman Gaus, cited in: Renée Beville Flower, ‎Brent M. Haddad (2014), Reawakening the Public Research University. p. 197

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“Simplicity is the mark of genius.”

Ernest Flagg (1857–1947) American architect

Small Houses: Their Economic Design and Construction (1922)
Context: Simplicity and Dignity are so nearly related that they may be considered together.... A quiet air of reserved power is characteristic of dignity, and that is best obtained by simple means and the absence of apparent effort. Simplicity is the mark of genius. The giant in art does his work easily, without straining and without affectation; his ways are direct and to the point.

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“The mind that opens to a new idea, Never comes back to its original size.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Actually said by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. in his book The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table: "Every now and then a man's mind is stretched by a new idea or sensation, and never shrinks back to its former dimensions."
Misattributed

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“I have spoken about the New Frontier.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

1963, President John F. Kennedy's last formal speech and public words
Context: For more than 3 years I have spoken about the New Frontier. This is not a partisan term, and it is not the exclusive property of Republicans or Democrats. It refers, instead, to this Nation's place in history, to the fact that we do stand on the edge of a great new era, filled with both crisis and opportunity, an era to be characterized by achievement and by challenge. It is an era which calls for action and for the best efforts of all those who would test the unknown and the uncertain in every phase of human endeavor. It is a time for pathfinders and pioneers.

“As Voltaire once remarked, "It is the privilege of the real genius, especially one who opens up a new path, to make great mistakes with impunity."”

Bryan Magee (1930–2019) British politician

Source: Confessions of a Philosopher (1997), p. 157
Context: As Voltaire once remarked, "It is the privilege of the real genius, especially one who opens up a new path, to make great mistakes with impunity." The Copernican revolution brought about by Kant was, I think, the most important single turning point in the history of philosophy. For that reason there has been, ever since, a watershed in understanding between those who have taken his work on board and those who have not. For a good many of the problems he uncovered, the solutions he put forward have not stood the test of time, but his uncovering of the problems remains the most illuminating thing a philosopher has ever done. Because of the fundamental character of these problems, and because Kant did not solve them, confronting them has been the most important challenge to philosophy ever since.

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“No one ever squared the circle with so much genius, or, excepting his principal object, with so much success.”

Jean-Étienne Montucla (1725–1799) French mathematician

Attributed to Montucla in Augustus De Morgan, A Budget of Paradoxes, (London, 1872), p. 96; Cited in: Robert Edouard Moritz. Memorabilia mathematica; or, The philomath's quotation-book, (1914) p. 366
About Gregory St. Vincent, described by De Morgan as "the greatest of circle-squarers, and his investigations led him into many truths: he found the property of the arc of the hyperbola which led to Napier's logarithms being called hyperbolic."

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“A physical delineation of nature terminates at the point where the sphere of intellect begins, and a new world of mind is opened to our view. It marks the limit, but does not pass it.”

Kosmos (1845 - 1847)
Context: From the remotest nebulæ and from the revolving double stars, we have descended to the minutest organisms of animal creation, whether manifested in the depths of ocean or on the surface of our globe, and to the delicate vegetable germs which clothe the naked declivity of the ice-crowned mountain summit; and here we have been able to arrange these phenomena according to partially known laws; but other laws of a more mysterious nature rule the higher spheres of the organic world, in which is comprised the human species in all its varied conformation, its creative intellectual power, and the languages to which it has given existence. A physical delineation of nature terminates at the point where the sphere of intellect begins, and a new world of mind is opened to our view. It marks the limit, but does not pass it.

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