Adams used this statement in a letter to Benjamin Waterhouse (21 May 1821), but he may have been quoting the poem "To Mr. Stuart, On his Portrait of Mrs. M" by Sarah Wentworth Apthorp Morton, first published in 1803:
: Genius is sorrow's child — to want allied —
Consoled by glory, and sustained by pride.
Misattributed
“Every child is in a way a genius; and every genius is in a way a child.”
Wirklich ist jedes Kind gewissermaßen ein Genie, und jedes Genie gewissermaßen ein Kind.
Bd. 2, § 3.31, p. 451
The World as Will and Representation (1819; 1844; 1859)
Confessions Of A Sceptic
The Nemesis of Faith (1849)
Context: Say not they have their reward on earth in the calm satisfaction of noble desires, nobly gratified, in the sense of great works greatly done; that too may be, but neither do they ask for that. They alone never remember themselves; they know no end but to do the will which beats in their hearts' deep pulses. Ay, but for these, these few martyred heroes, it might be after all that the earth was but a huge loss-and-profit ledger book; or a toy machine some great angel had invented for the amusement of his nursery; and the storm and the sunshine but the tears and the smiles of laughter in which he and his baby cherubs dressed their faces over the grave and solemn airs of slow-paced respectability.
Yes, genius alone is the Redeemer; it bears our sorrows, it is crowned with thorns for us; the children of genius are the church militant, the army of the human race. Genius is the life, the law of mankind, itself perishing, that others may take possession and enjoy. Religion, freedom, science, law, the arts, mechanical or heautiful, all which gives respectability a chance, have heen moulded out by the toil and the sweat and the blood of the faithful; who, knowing no enjoyment, were content to he the servants of their own born slaves, and wrought out the happiness of the world which despised and disowned them.
Variant: The secret of genius is to carry the spirit of the child into old age, which means never losing your enthusiasm.
“I think like a genius, I write like a distinguished author, I speak like a child.”
"Foreword", p. 3.
Strong Opinions (1973)
"The Orphan's Prayer", line 29; cited from Titus Strong (ed.) The Common Reader (Greenfield, Mass.: Denio & Phelps, 1819) p. 174.
You Can Lead an Atheist to Evidence, But You Can't Make Him Think (2009)
Source: Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son's First Year
"Sleep (A Woman Speaks)", line 1, p. 98.
The Monitions of the Unseen (1871)
