“Imagination's truth is from its power:
Man's genius can create when nature's felt;
He copies when he deems that he invents.”

Translations, From the French

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Imagination's truth is from its power: Man's genius can create when nature's felt; He copies when he deems that he in…" by Letitia Elizabeth Landon?

Letitia Elizabeth Landon785

English poet and novelist 1802–1838

Related quotes

“Genius is what a man invents when he is looking for a way out.”

Jean Paul Sartre (1905–1980) French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and …

“But to the Eyes of the Man of Imagination, Nature is Imagination itself. As a man is, So he Sees. As the Eye is formed, such are its Powers.”

William Blake (1757–1827) English Romantic poet and artist

Letter to Revd. Dr. Trusler (1799)
Context: To the Eyes of a Miser a Guinea is more beautiful than the Sun & and a bag worn with the use of Money has more beautiful proportions than a Vine filled with Grapes. The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the Eyes of others only a Green thing that stands in the way. Some see Nature all Ridicule and Deformity, and by these I shall not regulate my proportions; and some scarce see Nature at all. But to the Eyes of the Man of Imagination, Nature is Imagination itself. As a man is, So he Sees. As the Eye is formed, such are its Powers..

“Man is a genius when he is dreaming.”

Akira Kurosawa (1910–1998) Japanese film maker

Variant: Man is a genius when he is dreaming.

“Every living creature is happy when he fulfills his destiny, that is, when he realizes himself, when he is being that which in truth he is. For this reason, Schlegel, inverting the relationship between pleasure and destiny, said, “We have a genius for what we like.” Genius, man’s superlative gift for doing something, always carries a look of supreme pleasure.”

José Ortega Y Gasset (1883–1955) Spanish liberal philosopher and essayist

Source: What is Philosophy? (1964), pp. 16-17

“He wasn't just a genius, he had the genius's impatience with the whole idea of doing something again. He reinvented an art form, exhausted its possibilities, and just left it. There is always something frightening about that degree of inventiveness… He didn't lose his powers. He just lost interest in proving that he possessed them.”

Clive James (1939–2019) Australian author, critic, broadcaster, poet, translator and memoirist

'Vale, Peter Cook' ( The Pembroke College, Cambridge, Society Annuel Gazette http://www.agsm.edu.au/bobm/odds+ends/petercook.html, September 1995) <br class="br">Essays and reviews

“Man has to suffer. When he has no real afflictions, he invents some.”

José Martí (1853–1895) Poet, writer, Cuban nationalist leader

“The natural world has its laws, and no man must interfere with them in the way of presentment any more than in the way of use; but they themselves may suggest laws of other kinds, and man may, if he pleases, invent a little world of his own, with its own laws; for there is that in him which delights in calling up new forms — which is the nearest, perhaps, he can come to creation. When such forms are new embodiments of old truths, we call them products of the Imagination; when they are mere inventions, however lovely, I should call them the work of the Fancy: in either case, Law has been diligently at work.”

George MacDonald (1824–1905) Scottish journalist, novelist

The Fantastic Imagination (1893)

“Art in its unblemished nature, like religion and the search for truth, is thus literally a sacrament. The artist's calling and genius are sacred, and the men of old spoke with strict accuracy when they called the poet holy, and directed that he be venerated as a prophet.”

George Holmes Howison (1834–1916) American philosopher

Source: The Limits of Evolution, and Other Essays, Illustrating the Metaphysical Theory of Personal Ideaalism (1905), The Art-Principle as Represented in Poetry, p.199-200

“Though it might be nice to imagine there once was a time when man lived in harmony with nature, it’s not clear that he ever really did.”

Elizabeth Kolbert (1961) journalist and author

Source: The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History

“There are two times in a man's life when he should not speculate: when he can't afford it, and when he can.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

“Imagination's truth is from its power:Man's genius can create when nature's felt;He copies when he deems that he invents.”

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Letitia Elizabeth Landon785

Related quotes

Related topics

“Imagination's truth is from its power:
Man's genius can create when nature's felt;
He copies when he deems that he invents.”