Genius Quotes

Men of learning are those who have read the contents of books. Thinkers, geniuses, and those who have enlightened the world and furthered the race of men, are those who have made direct use
of the book of the world. ~ Arthur Schopenhauer

Genius is when an idea and the execution of that idea are simultaneous. ~ Albert Einstein

Just as his sentimentalism is profoundly middle-class and plebeian, but his irrationalism reactionary, so his moral philosophy also contains an inner contradiction: on the one hand, it is saturated with strongly plebeian characteristics, but on the other, it contains the germ of a new aristocratism. The concept of the 'beautiful soul' presupposes the complete dissolution of kalo-kagathia and implies the perfect spiritualization of all human values, but it also implies an application of aesthetic criteria to morality and is bound up with the view that moral values are the gift of nature. It means the recognition of a nobility of soul to which everyone has a right by nature, but in which the place of irrational birthrights is taken by an equally irrational quality of moral genius. The way of Rousseau's 'spiritual beauty' leads, on the one hand, to characters like Dostoevsky's Myshkin, who is a saint in the guise of an epilectic and an idiot, on the other, to the ideal of individual moral perfection which knows no social responsibility and does not aspire to be socially useful. Goethe, the Olympian, who thinks of nothing but his own spiritual perfection, is a disciple of Rousseau just as much as the young freethinker who wrote Werther. ~ Arnold Hauser

Dr Seraphina gazed at Gabriella with a cool, assessing eye. "What do you believe Gabriella?"
"I believe that if we do not protect our traditions from those who would destroy them, soon there will be nothing left to interpret."
"Ah, so you are a warrior, then," Dr Seraphina said, challenging Gabriella. "There are always those who would put on armour and go into battle. but the real genius is in finding a way to get what you desire without dying for it. ~ Danielle Trussoni

Chance created the situation; genius made use of it. ~ Leo Tolstoy

The especial genius of women I believe to be electrical in movement, intuitive in function, spiritual in tendency. ~ Margaret Fuller

Although genius always commands admiration, character most secures respect. The former is more the product of the brain, the latter of heart-power; and in the long run it is the heart that rules in life. ~ Samuel Smiles

By ecstasy I mean inner joyousness, and by inner joyousness I mean those inspirational fires which burn within the consciousness of great geniuses, fires which give to them an inconquerable vitality of spirit which breaks down all barriers as wheat bends before the wind. ~ Walter Russell

A true calling is aimed at the genius qualities already set within each person ... ~ Michael Meade

As we discard a limited mind and a life of limitation to step into the grandness of vastness, we realize infinity itself to be the Guru and all that we do as grace. As we traverse through consciousness that is the Guru, we become the Guru and each thought of ours is perfect in the now, as scriptures. Consciousness is the Guru, the wisdom. ~ Nandhiji

I don't want to be a genius-I have enough problems just trying to be a man. ~ Albert Camus

Jealousy is the tribute mediocrity pays to genius. ~ Fulton J. Sheen

Genius is the very eye of intellect and the wing of thought; it is always in advance of its time, and is the pioneer for the generation which it precedes. ~ William Gilmore Simms

Smell the aroma of beautiful food, then
go to the latrine and sniff. "What happened to you?" Your dung will answer,
"My beauty was a lure, a trick to get inside you."
Every matter particle does the same
enchantment. Try to see the beginning and end at once. Would you willingly wear manacles
just because they're made of gold? Admire the genius of an artist, but also watch what
happens to him or her in old age, how the expert craftsman's craft diminishes. ~ Rumi

Force always attracts men of low morality. ~ Albert Einstein

Genius is its own passport, and has always been ready to change habitats until the natural one is found. ~ Nikola Tesla

I think of published poets that you could know of...I think [Rainer Maria Rilke] probably has the most great published poems of any poet [...] but Rilke himself was an asshole. If you look at his biography, he was probably misogynist; he was a liar, a cheat; he was a terrible father; he was selfish; he put people down; he had no consideration for anyone [...] yet, he transcends that in his greatest poems. There's that ineffable, spiritual quality - that he himself couldn't reach! But somewhere underneath that reptilian exterior, that asshole exterior of Rainer Maria Rilke, there was some good that came through – like these little sunbursts coming through clouds – that had that moment. And he'd write the Duino Elegies, he'd write the New Poems, and somewhere, that came through.
And that's an amazing thing: you can have a lot of great people who are great individuals, who are loving and caring – and they can't do that. And that's not to say that their lives are meaningless, but they will never be able to affect anyone past the propinquity of their existence. They are never going to be able to affect someone in China; they are never going to be able to affect someone in 2132 the way Rilke can.
And that specialness needs to be acknowledged; that specialness needs to be upheld; it needs to be rewarded, and people need to say, 'Goddamn – that's a good thing! It's a good thing that people make art! ~ Dan Schneider

Fools ignore complexity. Pragmatists suffer it. Some can avoid it. Geniuses remove it. ~ Alan Perlis

When I was younger I would have told you it was my genius, but now I don't believe that for a second. Music just comes out of you, it flows through, it's weird. If you think about it intellectually, how does someone come up with two hundred riffs over their life time? ~ Tracii Guns

Genius is nothing more than inflamed enthusiasm. ~ Charles Churchill

The French dine to gratify, we to appease appetite," observed John Sanderson. "We demolish dinner, they eat it." The general misconception back home was that French food was highly seasoned, but not at all, wrote James Fenimore Cooper. The genius in French cookery was "in blending flavors and in arranging compounds in such a manner as to produce ... the lightest and most agreeable food." The charm of a French dinner, like so much in French life, was the "effect. ~ David McCullough

We must evaluate the political sympathies of other states and the effect war may have on them. To assess these things in all their ramifications and diversity is plainly a colossal task. Rapid and correct appraisal of them clearly calls for the intuition of a genius; to master all this complex mass by sheer methodical examination is obviously impossible. Bonaparte was quite right when he said that Newton himself would quail before the algebraic problems it could pose. ~ Carl Von Clausewitz

My father and mother are both very smart people and I always felt I was a little short of the mark. So I would compensate with a character like Logan Cale. He's wearing glasses, he's in a wheelchair, he's a computer genius. He's very far away from who I am, but I really wanted to play roles where I'd be taken seriously. ~ Michael Weatherly

Don't ever do that again, my intoxicating, wicked genius. ~ Tess Oliver

Discovery is new beginning. It is the origin of new rules that supplement, or even supplant, the old. Genius is creative. It is genius precisely because it disregards established routines, because it originates the novelties that will be the routines of the future. Were there rules for discovery, then discoveries would be mere conclusions. ~ Bernard Lonergan

Madness in method, that's genius ~ Frank Herbert

It has been written that so much of life is preparation, so much is routine, and so much is retrospect that the purest essence of anyone's genius contracts itself to a precious few hours. ~ James D Hornfischer

Talent finds its models, methods, and ends in society, exists for exhibition, and goes to the soul only for power to work. Genius is its own end, and draws its means and the style of its architecture from within. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

What was infinitely more valuable to Wagner, and what excited his gratitude to even more superlative utterance, was the confidence which Liszt showed in his genius, and without which, it is no exaggeration to say, Wagner's greatest works would probably have remained unwritten. ~ Richard Wagner

The first step in gaining the upper hand is always to seize the moral high ground, and to be able to do this with no more than a single word is nothing short of genius. I ~ Alan Bradley

I think genius can have a lot to do with nerve. And permission. ~ Kate Zambreno

When it comes to branding and the ever-changing social media phenomenon, you're not a mushroom. In other words, you shouldn't be kept in the dark and fed a pile of...well, you get the idea. ~ David Brier

The thing about people who are truly and malignantly crazy: their real genius is for making the people around them think they themselves are crazy. In military science this is called Psy-Ops, for your info. ~ David Foster Wallace

That's why I've just gone on … collecting this particular kind of stuff – what you might call riff-raff. There's not a book here, Lawford, that hasn't at least a glimmer of the real thing in it – just Life, seen through a living eye, and felt. As for literature, and style, and all that gallimaufry, don't fear for them if your author has the ghost of a hint of genius in his making. ~ Walter De La Mare

The genius must have his freedom and his independence. ~ Ayn Rand

What is the most overrated skill for an entrepreneur? The most overrated skill is skill. Luck is more important. The entrepreneur gets credit for being this genius, when really he was just at the right place at the right time. ~ Ken Hendricks

In passing however I must say of one thing that has pressed upon me lately and encreased my Humility and capability of submission and that is this truth - Men of Genius are great as certain ethereal Chemicals operating on the Mass of neutral intellect - but they have not any individuality, any determined Character - I would call the top and head of those who have a proper self Men of Power. ~ John Keats

It was the quartets of Beethoven (numbers 12,13,14, and 15) which over fifty years, created and expanded the the audience of listeners to the quartets of Beethoven, thus achieving, as all masterpieces do, progress if not in the quality of artists, at least in the company of minds, which is largely composed these days of what was missing when the work appeared: people capable of liking it. ~ Marcel Proust

The moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves as well. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen accidents, meetings and material assistance that no one could have dreamed would come their way. Whatever you can do or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now. - Goethe, by attribution ~ Gregory Maguire

High intelligence is to think the unthinkable; genius is to realize the very unexpected one. ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

The dread of criticism is the death of genius. ~ William Gilmore Simms

WHORES.
Necessary in the nineteenth century for the contraction of syphilis, without which no one could claim genius. ~ Julian Barnes

No person is so grand or wise or perfect as to be the master of another person. Teacher, perhaps. Setter of good example, perhaps. Genius, perhaps. But master, no. ~ Karl Hess

Enthusiasm is that secret and harmonious spirit which hovers over the production of genius. ~ Isaac D'Israeli

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. ~ Hannah More

Debt, grinding debt, whose iron face the widow, the orphan, and the sons of genius fear and hate;
debt, which consumes so much time, which so cripples and disheartens a great spirit with cares that seem so base, is a preceptor whose lessons cannot be forgone, and is needed most by those who suffer from it most. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

The ways by which you may get money almost without exception lead downward. To have done anything by which you earned money merely is to have been truly idle or worse. If the laborer gets no more than the wages which his employer pays him, he is cheated, he cheats himself. If you would get money as a writer or lecturer, you must be popular, which is to go down perpendicularly. Those services which the community will most readily pay for, it is most disagreeable to render. You are paid for being something less than a man. The State does not commonly reward a genius any more wisely. Even the poet laureate would rather not have to celebrate the accidents of royalty. He must be bribed with a pipe of wine; and perhaps another poet is called away from his muse to gauge that very pipe. ~ Henry David Thoreau

Ismail Merchant was just the most seductive, passionate, outrageous, driven, genius of a man. ~ Glenn Close

Oh! what a superior man," said Candide below his breath. "What a great genius is this Pococurante! Nothing can please him. ~ Voltaire

A man who possesses genius is insufferable unless he also possesses at least two other things: gratitude and cleanliness. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

Here, however, is where his genius truly took off. Galois managed to associate with each equation a sort of "genetic code" of that equation-the Galois group of the equation-and to demonstrate that the properties of the Galois group determine whether the equation is solvable by a formula or not. Symmetry became the key concept, and the Galois group was a direct measure of the symmetry properties of an equation. ~ Mario Livio

The probability that a genius can do stupid things is much higher than the probability that a stupid can do genius things. ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

Anybody who can do anything in Leicester but make a jumper has got to be a genius. ~ Brian Clough

Do it, my fellow Americans! Do it for every adolescent
anomic skank genius cloistered in his room, getting cranked,
rabidly humping his sampler as he confects some heretical,
monstrous persona for himself and dreams of an orgiastic,
blood-soaked apocalypse. Yes, the /impudence!/ We have
/nothing/ in this life of suffocating obligation but our
own motherfucking impudence! For God's sake, give us this
day our motherfucking big-dick impudence!! ~ Mark Leyner

I might not be all that good with mathematics in class; but go into my mind; and you will see that type of mathematic I put in; in my everyday life, and you can say that I am genius in a way in the terms of mentality; but retarded in class. ~ Temitope Owosela

America has a genius for the encouragement of fame. ~ Gilbert K. Chesterton

I was obsessed with Eminem when I was younger. When he first came out I was about 12 and fanatical about his 'Slim Shady' CD. I think he's a genius. ~ Robert Pattinson

Even the most misfitting child
Who's chanced upon the library's worth,
Sits with the genius of the Earth
And turns the key to the whole world.
Hear It Again ~ Ted Hughes

Genius is clairvoyant. ~ Abel Stevens

I used to love the saying, 'If you build a better mousetrap, the world will beat a path to your door.' It sounds great, right?

The only problem is that, as it turns out, it's not even remotely true.
Worse yet, it encourages people to passively wait for someone else to give them a break. Most people who do that will grow old waiting for someone to come along and recognize their genius. ~ John Hawkins

As monarchs have a right to call in the specie of a state, and raise its value, by their own impression; so are there certain prerogative geniuses, who are above plagiaries, who cannot be said to steal, but, from their improvement of a thought, rather to borrow it, and repay the commonwealth of letters with interest again; and may wore properly be said to adopt, than to kidnap a sentiment, by leaving it heir to their own fame. ~ Laurence Sterne

When I saw you I knew the universe had mastered my love language & I'd go through any amount of anguish to be a student of its genius. ~ Curtis Tyrone Jones

Old France, weighed down with history, prostrated by wars and revolutions, endlessly vacillating from greatness to decline, but revived, century after century, by the genius of renewal! ~ Charles De Gaulle

Thwarted, or starved, in the important objects proper to young capacities, the boys and young men naturally find or invent deviant objects for themselves ... Their choices and inventions are rarely charming, usually stupid, and often disastrous; we cannot expect average kids to deviate with genius. But on the other hand, the young men who conform to the dominant society become for the most part apathetic, disappointed, cynical and wasted. ~ Paul Goodman

I'm convinced that Bach is the greatest genius who ever walked among us, and the Brandenburgs are what he wrote when he was happy. ~ Douglas Adams

This is the method of genius, to ripen fruit for the crowd by those rays of whose heat they complain. ~ Margaret Fuller

Only a genius can overlook the chaos ~ Philosopher 'X'

There's a really brilliant photographer who's deceased who in my sort of fashion and modelling days, I was fortunate enough to get to work with before he passed away, but Richard Avedon was utterly genius and creatively brilliant. ~ Gabriel Mann

It appears to me that strong sense and acute sensibility together constitute genius. ~ George Pope Morris

Genius begins where talent ends. ~ Matshona Dhliwayo

Homer is one of the men of genius who solve that fine problem of art - the finest of all, perhaps - truly to depict humanity by the enlargement of man: that is, to generate the real in the ideal. ~ Victor Hugo

So it happened at last: I was about to become a thief, a cheap milk-stealer. Here was your lash-in-the-pen genius, your one story-writer: a thief. ~ John Fante

Genius sees the answer before the question. ~ J. Robert Oppenheimer

Make no mistake, no one has ever become great by mistake. ~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana

Plato spoke of the Sisters of Fate on the last 3 pages of his book, "The Republic" when he said: "Then the Sisters of Fate take all of our choices and weave them on their loom into the fabric of destiny. Hear the word of Lachesis, the daughter of Necessity. Mortal souls, behold a new cycle of life and mortality. Your genius will not be allotted to you, but you will choose your genius; and let him who draws the first lot have the first choice, and the life which he chooses shall be his destiny. Virtue is free, and as a man honors' or dishonors her he will have more or less of her; the responsibility is with the chooser - God is justified" [Quote from Plato's Republic written 360BCE In the Public Domain] ~ D.M. Hoover

If beauty isn't genius it usually signals at least a high level of animal cunning. ~ Peter York

[On Elizabeth Barrett Browning:] Her sweetness of character is even beyond her genius. ~ Mary Russell Mitford

Even if you're not as illiberal as Nietzsche, you might be worried if Nietzsche's right that certain kinds of traditional moral values are incompatible with the existence of people like Beethoven. That's the strong psychological [psycho-physiological] claim he makes – that you can't really be a creative genius like Beethoven and take morality seriously. I think even good old democratic egalitarian liberals could worry a bit about that, if it were true. It's a very striking and pessimistic challenge, because the liberal post-Enlightenment vision is that we can have our liberal democratic egalitarian ethos and everyone will be able to flourish. Nietzsche thinks there's a profound tension between the values that traditional morality holds up and the conditions necessary for creative genius.
[...]
The illiberal attitudes and the elitism was really central to the way he looked at things. The suffering of mankind at large was not a significant ethical concern in his view, it was largely a matter of indifference – in fact it was to be welcomed because there's nothing better than a good dose of suffering to get the creative juices flowing. ~ Brian Leiter

There seems a general wish of decrying the capacity and undervaluing the labor of the novelist, and of slighting performances which have only genius, wit and taste to recommend them. ~ Jane Austen

My comic sense, although deliberately Americanized, is, in its intent, much closer related to the crazy wisdom of Zen monks and the goofy genius of Taoist masters than it is to, say, the satirical gibes on Saturday Night Live. It has both a literary and a metaphysical function. ~ Tom Robbins

One science only will one genius fit; so vast is art, so narrow human wit. ~ Alexander Pope

Since when was genius found respectable? ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

I collected speech from so called "Smart", "Genius" nation... the judge is going to be made from you...

...

Don't worry "Notes of A Dead Man Sequel" are going to be one damn long journey. ~ Deyth Banger

I'm that annoying?"
"Well, you have pretty sharp mouth."
"I don't want to sound like a smartass, but sir I can't handle my own smartassness for being uncontrollably sparkling from me and mentally hurts you due to its awesomeness. I'm just unbelievably genius. Dummies like you call us 'crazy' but it's such a strong word."
"See? That's why people hates you." "And 'us'?"
"I'm pretty sure I'm not the only living genius. ~ Rea Lidde

As is the inventor of murder, and the father of art, Cain must have been a man of first-rate genius. ~ Thomas De Quincey

"Ask, and it is given" means that whether you are a full blossoming genius human, or whether you are the one-celled amoeba in the ocean, or a cell in one of your bodies, when it is concluded that something else is preferred (no matter how developed the consciousness is) every time a preference is noted, Nonphysical Energy rushes forth to answer it. It is the promise of our evolving beingness. ~ Esther Hicks

The genius of architecture seems to have shed its maledictions over this land. ~ Thomas Jefferson

There is no such thing as unfortunate genius; if a man or woman is fit for work, God appoints the field. ~ Adah Isaacs Menken

I'm going to make it a law that the correct way to address your sovereign is my giving a high five.' Kai's smiled brightened. 'That's genius. Me too. ~ Marissa Meyer

We love a genius for what he leaves and mourn him for what he takes away ~ Thomas Gainsborough

Even French pilferage has not relegated Italian culinary genius to the darker corners of gastronomy. Marie de' Medici brought Italian cookery to France, where Gallic duplicity quickly undermined the integrity of good ingredients with unctuous sauces. The French will always confuse egregious decorative effects with creative integrity. They have a genius for appearances. Trompe l'oeil will do for a Frenchman, but not for an Italian. ~ Roland Delicio

Too many people think that great victories like Grant's and Edison's came from a flash of insight. That they cracked the problem with pure genius. In fact, it was the slow pressure, repeated from many different angles, the elimination of so many other more promising options, that slowly and surely churned the solution to the top of the pile. Their genius was unity of purpose, deafness to doubt, and the desire to stay at it. ~ Ryan Holiday

I think 'A Serious Man' is genius. ~ John Requa

It is a law of life that human beings, even the geniuses among them, do not pride themselves on their actual achievements but thatthey want to impress others, want to be admired and respected because of things of much lower import and value. ~ Stefan Zweig

Bring the genius of the rich to unleash the genius of the poor. ~ Tony Meloto

The very thrills of genius are disorganizing. The body is never quite acclimated to its atmosphere, but how often, succumbs and goes into a decline. ~ Henry David Thoreau

Children inherit their parents' madness. ~ Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Ash has a huge customized Barbie collection. Aside from Horror Movie Barbie (head lopped halfway off, torn and bloody clothes), Commando Barbie (camouflage bandana, pistol-whipping Ken with toy guns stolen from Josh), there is my personal favorite, Fat Barbie (dressed in a muumuu, sporting extra body girth and a double chin, thanks to the discreet placement of Silly Putty), I think Fat Barbie is genius but Nancy flipped out when she saw her. Our mother, whose statuesque blond Minnesouda beauty makes her look like a Barbie, is a size four on her bloated days. ~ Rachel Cohn

There is no self-knowledge but an historical one. No one knows what he himself is who does not know his fellow men, especially the most prominent one of the community, the master's master, the genius of the age. ~ Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

There is a great sadness in knowing that men of genius are not able to transcend the limits of patriarchy. Had I but known that the works I so cherished had been done by human beings, not gods, and that great women, including feminists, had also once lived and worked, I suspect I might have been able to break free sooner from a whole host of fatally misguided notions. What we don't know can hurt us. ~ Phyllis Chesler