“"Genius" (which means transcendent capacity of taking trouble, first of all).”

“A genius and an Apostle are qualitatively different, they are definitions which each belong in their own spheres: the sphere of immanence, and the sphere of transcendence.”

“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.”

“Genius is an infinite capacity for causing pain.”

“Genius is play, and man's capacity for achieving genius is infinite, and many may achieve genius only through play.”

“These days, Clarissa believes, you measure people first by their kindness and their capacity for devotion. You get tired, sometimes, of wit and intellect; everybody's little display of genius.”

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

“Genius is the capacity to see ten things where the ordinary man sees one.”

“My capacity for happiness," he added, "you could fit into a matchbox without taking out the matches first”

“I call it simply the Book, with no qualifications or epithets, and in this abstinence and restraint there is a helpless sigh, silent capitulation to the immeasurableness of the transcendent; for no word, no allusion, could glisten, scent the air, or drift with such a shudder of terror, with any inkling of that unnameable thing, the very first taste of which, on the tip of the tongue, surpasses the capacity of our rapture.”