“You can do something with talent, but nothing with genius….”
Quoted in Jack Fishman's My Darling Clementine, the biography of Winston Churchill's wife. (p. 131).
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Margot Asquith12
Anglo-Scottish socialite, author and wit 1864–1945Related quotes
“Doing easily what others find difficult is talent; doing what is impossible for talent is genius.”
Henri-Frédéric Amiel (1821–1881) Swiss philosopher and poet
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919), Journal
Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)
Quote from a program at a Coolidge memorial service (1933); cited in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations (1999). The passage did not originate with Coolidge, but evolved over several decades, appearing as early as 1881 in a youth guidance book. From [Garson O’Toole, https://quoteinvestigator.com/2016/01/12/persist/, Purpose and Persistence Are Required for Success: Unrewarded Genius Is Almost a Proverb, Quote Investigator, January 12, 2016]
1930s
“Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself; but talent instantly recognizes genius.”
Arthur Conan Doyle book The Valley of Fear
Source: The Valley of Fear
“Talent does what it can: Genius does what it must.”
Edward Bulwer-Lytton (1803–1873) English novelist, poet, playwright, and politician
“Genius does what it must, talent does what it can.”
Robert Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Earl of Lytton (1831–1891) English statesman and poet
Last Words, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
Marlon Brando (1924–2004) American screen and stage actor
Rolling Stone Issue No. 213 (May 20, 1976) on Charlie Chaplin
“Criticism is something you can easily avoid by saying nothing, doing nothing, and being nothing.”
Aristotle (-384–-321 BC) Classical Greek philosopher, student of Plato and founder of Western philosophy
