“True virtue is genius.”

"Siècle de Louis XIV," ch. 32 (1751), qtd. in Arthur Schopenhauer, "The World as Will and Representation," Criticism of the Kantian philosophy (1818)
Citas
Original: (fr) C'est le privilège du vrai génie, et surtout du génie qui ouvre une carrière, de faire impunément de grandes fautes.

Casina, Prologue, line 87
Casina (The Lot Drawers)

#657
The Way (1950)

1840s, Essays: First Series (1841), Self-Reliance
Context: I read the other day some verses written by an eminent painter which were original and not conventional. The soul always hears an admonition in such lines, let the subject be what it may. The sentiment they instil is of more value than any thought they may contain. To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men, — that is genius. Speak your latent conviction, and it shall be the universal sense; for the inmost in due time becomes the outmost, — and our first thought is rendered back to us by the trumpets of the Last Judgment.

Yanni in Words. Miramax Books. Co-author David Rensin

Legislative Assembly, February 9, 1865
Context: This is a new land - a land of pretension because it is new; because classes and systems have not had that time to grow here naturally. We have no aristocracy but of virtue and talent, which is the only true aristocracy, and is the old and true meaning of the term. (Hear, hear.)

Attributed

Variant: Someone who is a clever speaker and maintains a 'too-smiley' face is seldom considered a humane person.
Source: The Analects, Chapter I