“What a falsehood it is to say that genius and industry are incompatible! Does one work of genius exist that has not also been a work of labour?”

“The only genius that's worth anything is the genius for hard work.”

“They say that genius is an infinite capacity for taking pains," he remarked with a smile. "It's a very bad definition, but it does apply to detective work.”

“The great genius does not let his work be determined by the concrete finite conditions that surround him, whilst it is from these that the work of the statesman takes its direction and its termination. … It is the genius in reality and not the other who is the creator of history, for it is only the genius who is outside and unconditioned by history.”

“.. to express himself well, the artist should be hidden... The trouble is that if an artist knows he has genius, he's done for. The only salvation is to work like a labourer, and not have delusions of grandeur.”

“Genius is seldom recognized for what it is: a great capacity for hard work.”

“The talent works, the genius creates.”

“The Great Code was a silly and sloppy book. It was also a work of very great genius. The point is that genius is not enough. A book worthy of God and of Helen [Frye's wife] must do better than that.”

“Works of genius are the first things in this world.”

“The Dictionary, great work though it be, might have been successfully carried through by a merely mechanical genius.”