genius

The gut-feel of the 55-year old trader is more important than the mathematical elegance of the 25-year old genius.

—Greenspan, Alan

Neurosishas anabsolutegenius for malingering.There is no illness which it cannot counterfeit perfectly.

—Proust, Marcel

In science men have discovered an activity of the very highest value in which they are no longer, as in art, dependent for progress upon the appearance of continually greater genius, for in science the successors stand upon the shoulders of their predecessors; where one man of supreme genius has invented a method, a thousand lesser men can apply it.

—Russell, Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl

I hate everything approaching temperamental inspiration,'sacred fire'and all those attributes of genius which serve only as cloaks for untidy minds.

—Mondrian, Piet

Bodyline was devised to stifle Bradman's batting genius. They said I was a'killer with the ball', without taking into account that Bradman, with the bat, was the greatest killer of all.

—Larwood, Harold

It is not in the outward and visible world of material life that the Celtic genius of Wales or Ireland can at this day hope to count for much; it is in the inward world of thought and science.What it has been, what is has done, what it will be or will do, as a matter of modern politics.

—Arnold, Matthew

What should I do, But cocker up my genius, and live free To all delights my fortune calls me to?

—Jonson, Ben

   Conceit spoils the finest genius†and the great charm of all power is modesty.

—Alcott, Louisa May

Rules and models destroy genius and art.

—Hazlitt,William

The real accomplishment of modern science and technology consists in taking ordinary men, informing them narrowlyand deeply and then, through appropriate organization, arranging to have their knowledge combined with that of other specialized but equally ordinary men. This dispenses with the need for genius.Theresulting performance, though lessinspiring, is far more predictable.

—Galbraith,John Kenneth

If we could all live a thousand years†we would each, at least once during that period, be considered a genius.

—Berger,John Peter

Every age has a kind of universal genius, which inclines those that live in it to some particular studies.

—Dryden,John

Death cancels everything but truth; and strips a man of everything but genius and virtue. It is a sort of natural canonization.

—Hazlitt,William

I wish you would recollect that Painting and Punctuality mix like Oil and Vinegar, and that Genius and regularity are utter Enemies and must be to the end of time.

—Gainsborough,Thomas

Art is a jealous mistress, and if a man have a genius for painting, poetry, music, architecture, or philosophy, he makes a bad husband and an ill provider.

—Emerson, RalphWaldo

Since when was genius found respectable?

—Browning, Elizabeth ne¤  e Barrett

For greatness is only the drayhorse that coaxes The built cart out; and where we go is reason. But genius is an enormous littleness, a trickling Of heart that covers alike the hare and the hunter.

—Patchen, Kenneth

I am a free man, I do not need to copy Petrarch or Boccaccio. My own genius is enough. Let others worry themselves about style and so cease to be themselves. Without a master, without a model, without a guide, without artifice,Igotowork and earnmy living, my well- being, and my fame.What do Ineedmore? Witha goose quill and a few sheets of paper I mock the universe.

—Aretino, Pietro

Le ge¤  nie se sent; mais il ne s'imite point. Genius is felt, but it is not imitated.

—Diderot, Denis

Genius is one per cent inspiration, ninety-nine per cent perspiration.

—Edison,Thomas Alva

Jane Austen is the only novelist I know whose peculiar genius lies in taking perfectly ordinary people through ordinary situations, and transmogrifying them into fascinating fiction.

—Banks, Lynne Reid

A man of genius makes no mistakes. His errors are volitional and are the portals of discovery.

—Joyce,James Augustine Aloysius

Thy genius calls thee not to purchase fame In keen iambics, but mild anagram: Leave writing plays, and choose for thy command Some peaceful province in Acrostic Land. There thou mayest wings displayand altars raise, And torture one poor word ten thousand ways.

—Dryden,John

The genius of Canada remains essentiallya deflationary genius.

—Morris,Jan formerly James Morris

We declare: the genius of our days to be: trousers, jackets, shoes, tramways, buses, aeroplanes, railways, magnificent shipsöwhat an enchantmentöwhat a great epoch unrivalled in world history. 490

—Larionov, Mikhail

Consult the genius of the place in all.

—Pope, Alexander

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

—Johnson, Samuel known as Dr Johnson

Ifthere ever was a misnomer, it is'exact science'. Science has always been full of mistakes; they require a genius to correct them.Of course, we do not see our own mistakes. 838

—Teller, Edward

You seldom find him making love in any of his scenes or endeavouring to move the passions; his genius was too sullen and saturnine to do it gracefully, especially when he knew he came after those who had performed both to such an height.

—Dryden,John

   I no longer wonder the elegant arts are unknown here; the rigor of the climate suspends the very powers of the understanding; what then must become of those of the imagination?† Geniuswill never mount high, wherethe faculties of the mind are benumbed half the year.

—Brooke, Frances ne¤  e Moore

Let school-masters puzzle their brain, With grammar, and nonsense, and learning; Good liquor, I stoutly maintain, Gives genius a better discerning.

—Goldsmith, Oliver

   In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts: they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty.

—Emerson, RalphWaldo

The patent system†added the fuel of interest to the fire of genius.

—Lincoln, Abraham

Wie manches wu«  rde in derTheorie unwidersprechlich scheinen, wenn es dem Genie nicht gelungen w a« re, das Widerspiel durch dieTat zu erweisen. How many things would have appeared incontestable in theory if genius had not proved them wrong in practice. Levant

—Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim

Like many businessmen of genius he learned that free competition was wasteful, monopoly efficient. And so he simply set about achieving that efficient monopoly.

—Puzo, Mario

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

—Stein, Gertrude

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

—Pound, Ezra Loomis

There is only one proved method of assisting the advancement of pure scienceöthat of picking men of genius, backing them heavily, and leaving them to direct themselves.

—Conant,James Bryant

What makes men of genius, or rather, what they make, is not new ideas, it is that ideaöpossessing themöthat what has been said has still not been said enough.

—Delacroix, (Ferdinand Victor) Euge'  ne

L'esprit et le ge¤  nie perdent vingt-cinq pour cent de leur valeur, en de¤ b arquant en Angleterre. The mind and genius lose twenty-five percent of their value on entry into England.

—Stendhal pseudonym of  Henri Beyle

There is in Kean, an infinite variety of talent, with a certain monotony of genius.

—Hazlitt,William

To these compositions is required neither genius nor knowledge, neither industry nor spriteliness, but contempt of shame, and indifference to truth are absolutely necessary.

—Johnson, Samuel known as Dr Johnson

A neurotic can perfectly well be a literary genius, but his greatest danger isalwaysthat hewill not recognize when he is dull.

—Auchincloss, Louis Stanton

   I have no interest in anything but genius, so please sit down.

—Langner, Lawrence

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.

—Beerbohm, Sir (Henry) Max(imilian)

I have nothing to declare except my genius.

—Wilde, Oscar Fingal O'FlahertieWills

This rortie wretched city Sair come down frae its auld hiechts öThe hauf o't smug, complacent, Lost til all pride of race or spirit, The tither wild and rouch as ever In its secret hairt But lost alsweill, the smeddum tane, The man o'independent mind has cap in hand the day öSits on its craggy spine And drees the wind and rain That nourished all its genius öWeary wi centuries This empty capital snorts like a great beast Caged in its sleep, dreaming of freedom.

—Smith, Sydney Goodsir

So we have the Philistine of genius in religionöLuther; the Philistine of genius in politicsöCromwell; the Philistine of genius in literatureöBunyan.

—Arnold, Matthew

Political genius consists in identifying oneself with a principle.

—Heffer, Simon

Shakespeare's name, you may depend upon it, stands absurdly too high and will go down.He had no invention as to stories, none whatever. He took all his plots from oldnovels, and threw their stories into dramatic shape† That he threw over whatever he did write some flashes of genius, nobody can deny; but this was all.

—Rochdale

Popular in our time, unpopular in his. So runs the stereotype of rejected genius.

—Hughes, Robert Studley Forrest

His speeches were prepared with that infinite capacity for taking pains, which is said to be genius.

—Acheson, Dean Gooderham

Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself, but talent instantly recognises genius.

—Doyle, SirArthur Conan

Zum Leben gibt es zwei Wege: Der eine ist der gew o« hnliche, direkte und brave. Der andere ist schlimm, er fu« h rt u«  ber denTod, und das ist der genialeWeg! There are two paths in life: one is the regular one, direct, honest. The other is bad, it leads through deathöthat is the way of genius!

—Mann,Thomas

I have infused life, glowing eloquence, philosophy, taste, sentiment, wit, and humor into the daily newspaper† Shakespeare is the great genius of the dramaöScott of the novelöMilton and Byron of the poemöand I mean to be the genius of the daily newspaper press.

—Bennett,James Gordon, Snr

Das Erste und Letzte, was vom Genie gefordert wird, ist Wahrheitsliebe. The first and thelastthingdemanded of geniusisthelove of truth.

—Goethe,JohannWolfgang von

I think like a genius, I write like a distinguished author, and I speak like a child.

—Nabokov,Vladimir

Though taste, though genius bless To some divine excess, Faints the cold work till thou inspire the whole; What each, what all supply May court, may charm our eye, Thou, only thou can'st raise the meeting soul!

—Collins,William

There comes Poe, with his raven, like Barnaby Rudge, Three-fifths of him genius and two-fifths sheer fudge.

—Lowell,James Russell

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

—Swift,Jonathan

The true genius is a mind of large general powers, accidentally determined to some particular direction.

—Johnson, Samuel known as Dr Johnson

Science is the only truth and it is the great lie. It knows nothing, and people think it knows everything. It is misrepresented. People think that science is electricity, automobilism, and dirigible balloons. It is something very different. It is life devouring itself. It is the sensibility transformed into intelligence. It is the need to know stifling the need to live. It is the genius of knowledge vivisecting the vital genius.

—Gourmont, Re¤  my de

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius.

—Eggers, Dave

There is sometimes a greater judgement shewn in deviating from the rules of art, than in adhering to them; and†there ismore beauty inthe works of a great genius who is ignorant of all the rules of art, than in the works of a little genius, who not only knows but scrupulously observes them.

—Addison,Joseph