A Time for Silence
“The only genius that's worth anything is the genius for hard work.”
“Genius is nothing else than a great aptitude for patience.”
La génie n'est utre chose qu'une grande aptitude à la patience.
Narrated by Herault de Séchelles ( La visite à Buffon, ou Voyage à Montbard http://www.atramenta.net/lire/voyage-a-montbard/3508, 1790), when speaking of a talk with Buffon in 1785. (Not in Buffon's works.) Reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
“Genius is 1% talent and 99% percent hard work…”
“Genius is seldom recognized for what it is: a great capacity for hard work.”
K 48
Aphorisms (1765-1799), Notebook K (1789-1793)
Source: Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry (1871), Ch. II : The Fellow-Craft, p. 44
Context: From the political point of view there is but a single principle,— the sovereignty of man over himself. This sovereignty of one's self over one's self is called Liberty. Where two or several of these sovereignties associate, the State begins. But in this association there is no abdication. Each sovereignty parts with a certain portion of itself to form the common right. That portion is the same for all. There is equal contribution by all to the joint sovereignty. This identity of concession which each makes to all, is Equality. The common right is nothing more or less than the protection of all, pouring its rays on each. This protection of each by all, is Fraternity.
Liberty is the summit, Equality the base. Equality is not all vegetation on a level, a society of big spears of grass and stunted oaks, a neighborhood of jealousies, emasculating each other. It is, civilly, all aptitudes having equal opportunity; politically, all votes having equal weight; religiously, all consciences having equal rights.
“Success is more a function of consistent common sense than it is of genius.”
Lessons : An Autobiography (1986)
The Animal Kingdom https://books.google.it/books?id=gKBgAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA0, trans. H. McMurtrie, London: Orr and Smith, 1834, p. 37.
