Quotes about genius

"Genius sits in a glass house -- but in an unbreakable one --conceiving ideas. After giving birth, it falls into madness. Stretches out its hand through the window toward the first person happening by. The demon's claw rips, the iron fist grips. Before, you were a model, mocks the ironic voice between serrated teeth, for me, you are raw material to work on. I throw you against the glass wall, so that you remain stuck there, projected and stuck. (Then come the lovers of art and contemplate the bleeding work from outside. Then come the photographers. New art, it says in the newspaper the following day. The learned journals give it a name that ends in ism.)"

Klee, Paul on genius   

"All of us, you, your children, your neighbors and their children are everyday geniuses, even though the fact is unnoticed and unremembered by everyone. That's probably because school hasn't encouraged us to notice what's hidden inside us waiting for the right environment to express itself."

Kline, Peter on genius   

"The principal mark of genius is not perfection but originality, the opening of new frontiers."

Koestler, Arthur on genius
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"To see things in the seed is genius."

Lao-Tzu on genius
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"Who in the same given time can produce more than others has vigor; who can produce more and better, has talents; who can produce what none else can, has genius."

Lavater, Johann Kaspar on genius   

"Genius always gives its best at first; prudence, at last."

Lavater, Johann Kaspar on genius   

"The real people of genius were resolute workers not idle dreamers."

Lewes, George Henry on genius
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"What I do not like about our definitions of genius is that there is in them nothing of the day of judgment, nothing of resounding through eternity and nothing of the footsteps of the Almighty."

Lichtenberg, Georg C. on genius   

"Everyone is a genius at least once a year; a real genius has his original ideas closer together."

Lichtenberg, Georg C. on genius   

"Towering genius disdains a beaten path."

Lincoln, Abraham on genius
3 fans of this quote   

"All the means of action -- the shapeless masses -- the materials -- lie everywhere about us. What we need is the celestial fire to change the flint into the transparent crystal, bright and clear. That fire is genius."

Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth on genius   

"It is the privilege of genius that life never grows common place, as it does for the rest of us."

Lowell, James Russell on genius
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"Every person of genius is considerably helped by being dead."

Lund, Robert S. on genius   

"Genius is eternal patience."

Michelangelo on genius   

This quotation can be viewed in the context of a book

"There is no genius in life like the genius of energy and industry."

Mitchell, Don G. on genius   

This quotation can be viewed in the context of a book

"Genius without religion is only a lamp on the outer gate of a palace; it may serve to cast a gleam of light on those that are without, while the inhabitant sits in darkness."

More, Hannah on genius   

"Genius is an African who dreams up snow."

Nabokov, Vladimir on genius
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"Geniuses themselves don't talk about the gift of genius, they just talk about hard work and long hours."

Penney, J. C. (James Cash) on genius
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"The genius of Einstein leads to Hiroshima."

Picasso, Pablo on genius
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"It is personality with a penny's worth of talent. Error which chances to rise above the commonplace."

Picasso, Pablo on genius   

"A man of genius has a right to any mode of expression."

Pound, Ezra on genius
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"One of the satisfactions of a genius is his will-power and obstinacy."

Ray, Man on genius   

"The lamp of genius burns quicker than the lamp of life."

Schiller, Johann Friedrich Von on genius   

"Genius is, to be sure, not a matter of arbitrariness, but rather of freedom, just as wit, love, and faith, which once shall become arts and disciplines. We should demand genius from everybody, without, however, expecting it."

Schlegel, Friedrich on genius   

"Great minds are related to the brief span of time during which they live as great buildings are to a little square in which they stand: you cannot see them in all their magnitude because you are standing too close to them."

Schopenhauer, Arthur on genius   

"Genius is essentially creative; it bears the stamp of the individual who possesses it."

Stael, Germaine De on genius   

"It takes a lot of time to be a genius. You have to sit around so much doing nothing, really doing nothing."

Stein, Gertrude on genius   

"When a true genius appears in this world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him."

Swift, Jonathan on genius
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"True genius sees with the eyes of a child and thinks with the brain of a genius."

Thomajan, Puzant Kevork on genius   

"Every man is a potential genius until he does something."

Tree, Sir Herbert Beerbohm on genius   

"The function of genius is not to give new answers, but to pose new questions which time and mediocrity can resolve."

Trevor-Roper, H. R. on genius   

"Thousands of geniuses live and die undiscovered -- either by themselves or by others."

Twain, Mark on genius
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"So few people think. When we find one who really does, we call him a genius"

Unknown, Source on genius   

"There is one subtle but important difference between genius and stupidity and that is that genius has its limits. You'll see yourself clearest in the eyes of your friends."

Unknown, Source on genius   

"Genius goes around the world in its youth incessantly apologizing for having large feet. What wonder that later in life it should be inclined to raise those feet too swiftly to fools and bores."

Unknown, Source on genius   

"Genius is nothing more than inflamed enthusiasm."

Unknown, Source on genius   

"The divine egoism hat is genius."

Webb, Mary on genius   

"Real genius is nothing else but the supernatural virtue of humility in the domain of thought."

Weil, Simone on genius   

"Everybody denies I am a genius --but nobody ever called me one!"

Welles, Orson on genius   

"I put all my genius into my life; I put only my talent into my works."

Wilde, Oscar on genius
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