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
“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.”
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.
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James Anthony Froude 111
English historian, novelist, biographer, and editor of Fras… 1818–1894Related quotes
“Yes, let us love winter, for it is the spring of genius.”
Source: The Works of Aretino: Biography: de Sanctis. The letters, 1926, p. 143
“Perhaps genius alone understands genius fully.”
Sometimes translated as: Perhaps only genius fully understands genius
Original: Vielleicht versteht nur der Genius den Genius ganz, Robert Schumann, Advice to Young Musicians, translation of Musikalische Haus- und Lebens-Regeln, translated by Henry Hugo Pierson, Leipsic & New York: J. Schuberth & Co., 1860.
“Her heart was a passion-flower, bearing within it the crown of thorns and the cross of Christ.”
Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 397.
“Genius, like humanity, rusts for want of use.”
"On Application to Study"
The Plain Speaker (1826)
Quote from a program at a Coolidge memorial service (1933); cited in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations (1999). The passage did not originate with Coolidge, but evolved over several decades, appearing as early as 1881 in a youth guidance book. From [Garson O’Toole, https://quoteinvestigator.com/2016/01/12/persist/, Purpose and Persistence Are Required for Success: Unrewarded Genius Is Almost a Proverb, Quote Investigator, January 12, 2016]
1930s
Source The European Spider's Web, in Bridge of Love Magazine - May 1997
“Genius is an exceedingly common human quality, probably natural to most of us.”
“Genius is essentially creative; it bears the stamp of the individual who possesses it.”
Bk. 7, ch. 1
Corinne (1807)