Quotes about genius
page 5

Robert A. Heinlein photo
Max Beckmann photo
Margot Asquith photo

“You can do something with talent, but nothing with genius….”

Margot Asquith (1864–1945) Anglo-Scottish socialite, author and wit

Quoted in Jack Fishman's My Darling Clementine, the biography of Winston Churchill's wife. (p. 131).

“If we ask what it is he [ George Orwell] stands for, … the answer is: the virtue of not being a genius, of fronting the world with nothing more than one’s simple, direct, undeceived intelligence, and a respect for the powers one does have. … He communicates to us the sense that what he has done any one of us could do. Or could do if we but made up our mind to do it, if we but surrendered a little of the cant that comforts us, if for a few weeks we paid no attention to the little group with which we habitually exchange opinions, if we took our chance of being wrong or inadequate, if we looked at things simply and directly, having in mind only our intention of finding out what they really are, not the prestige of our great intellectual act of looking at them. He liberates us. He tells us that we can understand our political and social life merely by looking around us; he frees us from the need for the inside dope. He implies that our job is not to be intellectual, certainly not to be intellectual in this fashion or that, but merely to be intelligent according to our own lights—he restores the old sense of the democracy of the mind, releasing us from the belief that the mind can work only in a technical, professional way and that it must work competitively. He has the effect of making us believe that we may become full members of the society of thinking men. That is why he is a figure for us.”

Lionel Trilling (1905–1975) American academic

“George Orwell and the politics of truth,” The Opposing Self (1950), pp. 156-158
The Opposing Self (1950)

Nadine Gordimer photo
Henry Adams photo

“The idea that one has actually met a real genius dawns slowly on a Boston mind, but it made entry at last.”

Henry Adams (1838–1918) journalist, historian, academic, novelist

The Education of Henry Adams (1907)

Roy Strong photo
André Maurois photo

“Genius consists of equal parts of natural aptitude and hard work.”

André Maurois (1885–1967) French writer

A Time for Silence

Daniel Levitin photo
Thomas Jefferson photo

“I have received the favor of your letter of August 17th, and with it the volume you were so kind as to send me on the Literature of Negroes. Be assured that no person living wishes more sincerely than I do, to see a complete refutation of the doubts I have myself entertained and expressed on the grade of understanding allotted to them by nature, and to find that in this respect they are on a par with ourselves. My doubts were the result of personal observation on the limited sphere of my own State, where the opportunities for the development of their genius were not favorable, and those of exercising it still less so. I expressed them therefore with great hesitation; but whatever be their degree of talent it is no measure of their rights. Because Sir Isaac Newton was superior to others in understanding, he was not therefore lord of the person or property of others. On this subject they are gaining daily in the opinions of nations, and hopeful advances are making towards their reestablishment on an equal footing with the other colors of the human family.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

I pray you therefore to accept my thanks for the many instances you have enabled me to observe of respectable intelligence in that race of men, which cannot fail to have effect in hastening the day of their relief; [...].
Letter to Henri Grégoire http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/mtj:@field(DOCID+@lit(tj110052)) (25 February 1809), as quoted in The Works of Thomas Jefferson in Twelve Volumes. Federal Edition. Collected and Edited by Paul Leicester Ford. Also quoted in The Science and Politics of Racial Research by William H. Tucker (1994), p. 11
1800s, Second Presidential Administration (1805-1809)

Frances Kellor photo
Corneliu Zelea Codreanu photo
Marion Bauer photo

“He died alone and forgotten and only in modern times has he come up as a genius composer and a brilliant visionary.”

Marion Bauer (1882–1955) American composer

Harry Shaw Simpson. (2014). Music Today, p.300. Geni Book Publishing Experts. ISBN 0452616764030.

Giorgio Vasari photo
Ralph Waldo Emerson photo

“England’s genius filled all measure
Of heart and soul, of strength and pleasure,
Gave to the mind its emperor,
And life was larger than before:
Nor sequent centuries could hit
Orbit and sum of Shakespeare’s wit.
The men who lived with him became
Poets, for the air was fame.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

Solution http://www.humanitiesweb.org/human.php?s=l&p=c&a=p&ID=20586&c=323, l. 35-42
1860s, May-Day and Other Pieces (1867)

James Macpherson photo

“With a genius truly poetical, he [Macpherson] was one of the first literary impostors in modern times.”

James Macpherson (1736–1796) Scottish writer, poet, translator, and politician

Malcolm Laing, The Poems of Ossian, Vol. I (1805), p. liv.
Criticism

William Beebe photo
Denis Diderot photo
Otto Weininger photo
Georgy Zhukov photo

“Generalissimo Stalin directed every move… made every decision… He is the greatest and wisest military genius who ever lived…”

Georgy Zhukov (1896–1974) Marshal of the Soviet Union

Quoted in "TOP GENERAL: ZHUKOV" - from "Time" Magazine, Monday, February 21, 1955

Martin Luther King, Jr. photo
Henry Ford photo
George Moore (novelist) photo
Robert G. Ingersoll photo
Otto Weininger photo
Martin Luther King, Jr. photo
Brian Wilson photo

“Being called a musical genius was a cross to bear. Genius is a big word. But if you have to live up to something, you might as well live up to that.”

Brian Wilson (1942) American musician, singer, songwriter and record producer

"Brian Wilson: God Only Knows" http://www.rollingstone.com/music/features/god-only-knows-19880811 in Rolling Stone (11 August 1988)

Alexander Alekhine photo

“With his death, we have lost a very great chess genius whose like we'll never see again.”

Alexander Alekhine (1892–1946) Russian / French chess player, chess writer, and chess theoretician

Quoted in: Edward G. Winter (1989) Capablanca: A Compendium of Games, Notes, Articles..., p. 307; on his great rival José Raúl Capablanca.

Yuvan Shankar Raja photo
Johan Cruyff photo
Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo
Denis Diderot photo

“The general interest of the masses might take the place of the insight of genius if it were allowed freedom of action.”

Denis Diderot (1713–1784) French Enlightenment philosopher and encyclopædist

Observations on the Drawing Up of Laws (1774)

Thomas Carlyle photo
Gore Vidal photo
Alfred North Whitehead photo
Henry Adams photo
Robert Jeffress photo
Edgard Varèse photo

“Everyone is born with genius, but most people only keep it a few minutes.”

Edgard Varèse (1883–1965) French composer

As quoted by Martha Graham, in Dance Observer, Volumes 24-27 (1957), p. 5

Northrop Frye photo

“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.”

Northrop Frye (1912–1991) Canadian literary critic and literary theorist

1:160
"Quotes", Late Notebooks, 1982–1990: Architecture of the Spiritual World (2002)

Adolf Hitler photo
John Hall photo

“Culture is good, genius is brilliant, civ1lization is a blessing, education is a great pr1vilege; but we may be educated villains.. The thing that we want most of ail is the precious gift of the Holy Ghost.”

John Hall (1829–1898) Presbyterian pastor from Northern Ireland in New York, died 1898

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 320.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning photo

“Since when was genius found respectable?”

Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861) English poet, author

Bk. VI, l. 275.
Aurora Leigh http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/barrett/aurora/aurora.html (1857)

Pitirim Sorokin photo

“Man is a conscious, rational thinker and a supra-conscious creator genius.”

Pitirim Sorokin (1889–1968) American sociologist

Pitirim Sorokin (1964) The basic trends of our times http://books.google.nl/books?id=SXrO4qCbmMIC, p. 39

Jacob Maris photo

“Thijs knew everything by himself, he was a genius.”

Jacob Maris (1837–1899) Dutch painter

translation from original Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek, 2018
version in original Dutch / citaat van Jacob Maris, in het Nederlands: Thijs wist alles uit zich zelf, hij was een genie.
Quote of Jacob Maris about his brother Matthijs Maris, in a talk with G. H. Marius in: De Hollandsche Schilderkunst in de 19e eeuw, G. H. Marius; Martinus Nijhoff, s-Gravenhage, 1903/1920, p. 144
Variant: A painting is finished when one can see what it represents. (translation from original Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek, 2018)

Joshua Reynolds photo

“Could we teach taste or genius by rules, they would be no longer taste and genius.”

Joshua Reynolds (1723–1792) English painter, specialising in portraits

Discourse no. 3; vol. 1, p. 57.
Discourses on Art

Mark Kac photo
Charles Robert Leslie photo

“Turner was a very different man to Constable, yet quite like him in one respect, namely, his entire reliance on a guide within himself, always a characteristic of genius.”

Charles Robert Leslie (1794–1859) British painter (1794-1859)

Autobiographical Recollections of C. R. Leslie with Selections from his correspondence

Alison Lohman photo
Cotton Mather photo

“Your Knowledge has Qualified You to make those Reflections on the following Relations, which few can Think, and tis not fit that all should See. How far the Platonic Notions of Demons which were, it may be, much more espoused by those primitive Christians and Scholars that we call The Fathers, than they see countenanced in the ensuing Narratives, are to be allowed by a serious man, your Scriptural Divinity, join'd with Your most Rational Philosphy, will help You to Judge at an uncommon rate. Had I on the Occasion before me handled the Doctrin of Demons, or launced forth into Speculations about magical Mysteries, I might have made some Ostentation, that I have read something and thought a little in my time; but it would neither have been Convenient for me, nor Profitable for those plain Folkes, whose Edification I have all along aimed at. I have therefore here but briefly touch't every thing with an American Pen; a Pen which your Desert likewise has further Entitled You to the utmost Expressions of Respect and Honor from. Though I have no Commission, yet I am sure I shall meet with no Crimination, if I here publickly wish You all manner of Happiness, in the Name of the great Multitudes whom you have laid under everlasting Obligations. Wherefore in the name of the many hundred Sick people, whom your charitable and skilful Hands have most freely dispens'd your no less generous than secret Medicines to; and in the name of Your whole Countrey, which hath long had cause to believe that you will succeed Your Honourable Father and Grandfather in successful Endeavours for our Welfare; I say, In their Name, I now do wish you all the Prosperity of them that love Jerusalem. And whereas it hath been sometimes observed, That the Genius of an Author is commonly Discovered in the Dedicatory Epistle, I shall be content if this Dedicatory Epistle of mine, have now discovered me to be,
(Sir) Your sincere and very humble Servant,
C. Mather.”

Cotton Mather (1663–1728) American religious minister and scientific writer
Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo
Max Beerbohm photo

“I have known no man of genius who had not to pay, in some affliction or defect either physical or spiritual, for what the gods had given him.”

Max Beerbohm (1872–1956) English writer

No. 2, The Pines (1914)
And Even Now http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext99/evnow10.txt (1920)

George Steiner photo
Edward Gibbon photo
Joseph Louis Lagrange photo

“Newton was the greatest genius that ever existed, and the most fortunate, for we cannot find more than once a system of the world to establish.”

Joseph Louis Lagrange (1736–1813) Italian mathematician and mathematical physicist

As quoted by F. R. Moulton, Introduction to Astronomy (New York, 1906), p. 199.

Charlotte Brontë photo
Thomas Francis Meagher photo

“We now look into history with the generous pride of the nationalist, not with the cramped prejudice of the partisan. We do homage to Irish valour, whether it conquers on the walls of Derry, or capitulates with honour before the ramparts of Limerick; and, sir, we award the laurel to Irish genius, whether it has lit its flames within the walls of old Trinity, or drawn its inspiration from the sanctuary of Saint Omer’s. Acting in this spirit, we shall repair the errors and reverse the mean condition of the past. If not, we perpetuate the evil that has for so many years consigned this Country to the calamities of war and the infirmities of vassalage, "We must tolerate each other," said Henry Grattan, the inspired preacher of Irish nationality — he whose eloquence, as Moore has described it, was the very music of Freedom — "We must tolerate each other, or we must tolerate the common enemy…"But, sir, whilst we must endeavour wisely to conciliate let us not, to the strongest foe, nor in the most tempting emergency, weakly capitulate…Let earnest truth, stern fidelity to principle, love for all who bear the name of Irishmen, sustain, ennoble and immortalise this cause. Thus shall we reverse the dark fortunes of the Irish race, and call forth here a new nation from the ruins of the old.Thus shall a Parliament moulded from the soil, pregnant with the sympathies and glowing with the genius of the soil, be here raised up. Thus shall an honourable kingdom be enabled to fulfil the great ends that a bounteous Providence hath assigned her—which ends have been signified to her in the resources of her soil and the abilities of her sons.”

Thomas Francis Meagher (1823–1867) Irish nationalist & American politician

Legislative "Union" with Greath Britain (1846)

Heinrich Heine photo

“Great genius takes shape by contact with another great genius, but less by assimilation than by friction.”

Heinrich Heine (1797–1856) German poet, journalist, essayist, and literary critic

As quoted in Dictionary of Quotations from Ancient and Modern English and Foreign Sources (1899) by James Wood, p. 6

Henry Adams photo
Hannah Arendt photo
Benjamin Disraeli photo

“The Athanasian Creed is the most splendid ecclesiastical lyric ever poured forth by the genius of man.”

Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Prime Minister

Source: Books, Coningsby (1844), Endymion (1880), Ch. 52.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo
Keir Hardie photo

“Socialism does not propose to abolish land or capital. Only a genius could have thought of this as an objection to Socialism. Socialism proposes to abolish capitalism and landlordism.”

Keir Hardie (1856–1915) Scottish socialist and labour leader

Source: From Serfdom to Socialism (1907), p. 11

George William Curtis photo

“The slavery debate has been really a death-struggle from that moment. Mr. Clay thought not. Mr. Clay was a shrewd politician, but the difference between him and Calhoun was the difference between principle and expediency. Calhoun's sharp, incisive genius has engraved his name, narrow but deep, upon our annals. The fluent and facile talents of Clay in a bold, large hand wrote his name in honey upon many pages. But time is already licking it away. Henry Clay was our great compromiser. That was known, and that was the reason why Mr. Buchanan's story of a bargain with J. Q. Adams always clung to Mr. Clay. He had compromised political policies so long that he had forgotten there is such a thing as political principle, which is simply a name for the moral instincts applied to government. He did not see that when Mr. Calhoun said he should return to the Constitution he took the question with him, and shifted the battle-ground from the low, poisonous marsh of compromise, where the soldiers never know whether they are standing on land or water, to the clear, hard height of principle. Mr. Clay had his omnibus at the door to roll us out of the mire. The Whig party was all right and ready to jump in. The Democratic party was all right. The great slavery question was going to be settled forever. The bushel-basket of national peace and plenty and prosperity was to be heaped up and run over. Mr. Pierce came all the way from the granite hills of New Hampshire, where people are supposed to tell the truth, to an- nounce to a happy country that it was at peace — that its bushel-basket was never so overflowingly full before. And then what? Then the bottom fell out. Then the gentlemen in the national rope -walk at Washington found they had been busily twining a rope of sand to hold the country together. They had been trying to compromise the principles of human justice, not the percentage of a tariff; the instincts of human nature and consequently of all permanent government, and the conscience of the country saw it. Compromises are the sheet-anchor of the Union — are they? As the English said of the battle of Bunker Hill, that two such victories would ruin their army, so two such sheet- anchors as the Compromise of 1850 would drag the Union down out of sight forever.”

George William Curtis (1824–1892) American writer

1850s, The Present Aspect of the Slavery Question (1859)

John Ruskin photo
Werner Erhard photo

“I have a lot of respect for L. Ron Hubbard and I consider him to be a genius and perhaps less acknowledged than he ought to be.”

Werner Erhard (1935) Critical Thinker and Author

[James R. Lewis, 2001, w:James R. Lewis, Odd Gods: New Religions and the Cult Controversy, Amherst, New York, Prometheus Books, 382-387, 1573928429]
Attributed

Regina E. Dugan photo

“The DARPA model has three elements:
Ambitious goals. The agency’s projects are designed to harness science and engineering advances to solve real-world problems or create new opportunities. At Defense, GPS was an example of the former and stealth technology of the latter. The problems must be sufficiently challenging that they cannot be solved without pushing or catalyzing the science. The presence of an urgent need for an application creates focus and inspires greater genius.
Temporary project teams. DARPA brings together world-class experts from industry and academia to work on projects of relatively short duration. Team members are organized and led by fixed-term technical managers, who themselves are accomplished in their fields and possess exceptional leadership skills. These projects are not open-ended research programs. Their intensity, sharp focus, and finite time frame make them attractive to the highest-caliber talent, and the nature of the challenge inspires unusual levels of collaboration. In other words, the projects get great people to tackle great problems with other great people.
Independence. By charter, DARPA has autonomy in selecting and running projects. Such independence allows the organization to move fast and take bold risks and helps it persuade the best and brightest to join.”

Regina E. Dugan (1963) American businesswoman, inventor, and technology developer

“Special Forces” Innovation: How DARPA Attacks Problems (2013)

Henry Ward Beecher photo

“Genius is a steed too fiery for the plow or cart.”

Henry Ward Beecher (1813–1887) American clergyman and activist

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit (1887)

Samuel R. Delany photo
Tim Cook photo
Gamal Abdel Nasser photo

“The genius of you Americans is that you never make clear-cut stupid moves, only complicated stupid moves which make us wonder at the possibility that there may be something to them we are missing.”

Gamal Abdel Nasser (1918–1970) second president of Egypt

As quoted in [The Game of Nations, The Amorality of Power Politics, Copeland, Miles, 216, 1970, 4, Simon and Schuster]

George Gordon Byron photo
Donald J. Trump photo

“Fine Art then, records by idealised imitation the glorious works of good men, whilst it holds those of bad men up to our abhorrence — it gives to posterity their images, either on the tinted canvass or the sculptured marble — it imitates the beautiful effects of nature as seen in the glowing landscape or the rising storm, and perpetuates the appearance of those beauteous gems of the seasons — flowers and fruits, which, though fading whilst the painter catches their tints, yet live after decay by and through his genius.
Industrial Art, on the contrary, aims at the embellishment of the works of man, by and through that power which is given to the artist for the investigation of the beautiful in nature; and in transferring it to the loom, the printing machine, the potter's wheel, or the metal worker's mould, he reproduces nature in a new form, adapting it to his purpose by an intelligence arising out of his knowledge as an artist and as a workman. In short, the adaptation of the natural type to a new material compels him to reproduce, almost create, as well as imitate — invent as well as copy”

design as well as draw!
George Wallis. " Art Education for the people. No IV. The principles of Fine Art as Applied to Industrial Purposes http://books.google.com/books?id=l55GAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA231." In: People's & Howitt's Journal: Of Literature, Art, and Popular Progress, Vol. 3. John Saunders ed. 1847, p. 231.

James Madison photo
Thomas Carlyle photo
André Breton photo
William Westmoreland photo
Robert Skidelsky photo

“We always tend to distrust geniuses about genius, as if what they say didn’t arouse much empathy in us, or as if we were waiting till some more reliable source of information came along…”

Randall Jarrell (1914–1965) poet, critic, novelist, essayist

“On Preparing to Read Kipling”, p. 125
A Sad Heart at the Supermarket: Essays & Fables (1962)

John Denham photo

“Nor ought a genius less than his that writ
Attempt translation.”

John Denham (1615–1669) English poet and courtier

To Sir Richard Fanshaw, Upon his Translation of Pastor Fido, line 9.

Joshua Reynolds photo
Donald J. Trump photo
Anastacia photo
William Shenstone photo

“A fool and his words are soon parted; a man of genius and his money.”

William Shenstone (1714–1763) English gardener

On Reserve

Samuel Johnson photo

“Milton, Madam, was a genius that could cut a Colossus from a rock; but could not carve heads upon cherry-stones.”

Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) English writer

In response to Hannah More wondering why Milton could write Paradise Lost but only poor sonnets. June 13, 1784, p. 542
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol IV

African Spir photo
George Gordon Byron photo

“When all of genius which can perish dies.”

George Gordon Byron (1788–1824) English poet and a leading figure in the Romantic movement

Source: Monody on the Death of Sheridan (1816), Line 22.

Alexander Hamilton photo
Michael Foot photo

“He was without any rival whatever, the first comic genius who ever installed himself in Downing Street”

Michael Foot (1913–2010) British politician

On Benjamin Disraeli, in his own book, Debts of Honour
1980s

Ernest Hemingway photo
Filippo Tommaso Marinetti photo

“Idealists, workers of thought, unite to show how inspiration and genius walk in step with the progress of the machine, of aircraft, of industry, of trade, of the sciences, of electricity.”

Filippo Tommaso Marinetti (1876–1944) Italian poet and editor, founder of the Futurist movement

Quote of Filippo Marinetti, in his review 'Poesia' 1905; as cited in Futurism, ed. By Didier Ottinger; Centre Pompidou / 5 Continents Editions, Milan, 2008, p. 78
1900's