Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotations on Genius

The kind of intelligence a genius has is a different sort of intelligence. The thinking of a genius does not proceed logically. It leaps with great ellipses. It pulls knowledge from God knows where.
Dorothy Thompson (1893–1961) American Journalist, Radio Personality

A genius is one who shoots at something no one else can see—and hits it.
Unknown

Masterpieces are not single and solitary births; they are the outcome of many years of thinking in common, of thinking by the body of the people, so that the experience of the mass is behind the single voice.
Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) English Novelist

Geniuses are the luckiest of mortals because what they must do is the same as what they most want to do.
W. H. Auden (1907–73) British-born American Poet, Dramatist

Cleverness is a sort of genius for instrumentality. It is the brain of the hand. In literature, cleverness is more frequently accompanied by wit, genius, and sense, than by humor.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) English Poet, Literary Critic, Philosopher

A harmless hilarity and a buoyant cheerfulness are not infrequent concomitants of genius; and we are never more deceived than when we mistake gravity for greatness, solemnity for science, and pomposity for erudition.
Charles Caleb Colton (c.1780–1832) English Clergyman, Aphorist

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 is in darkness.
Hannah More

Genius is an intellect that has become unfaithful to its destiny.
Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) German Philosopher

One is not born a genius. One becomes a genius.
Simone de Beauvoir (1908–86) French Philosopher, Writer, Feminist

Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness concerning all acts of initiative and creation. There is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans; that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen events, meetings and material assistance which no one could have dreamed would have come their way. I have learned a deep respect for one of Goethe’s couplets: “Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now!”
William Hutchinson Murray (1913–96) Scottish Mountaineer

Genius without education is like silver in the mine.
Benjamin Franklin (1706–90) American Political Leader, Inventor, Diplomat

We are all geniuses up to the age of ten.
Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) English Humanist, Pacifist, Essayist, Short Story Writer, Satirist

Only an inventor knows how to borrow, and every man is or should be an inventor.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher

A man of genius has been seldom ruined but by himself.
Samuel Johnson (1709–84) British Essayist

A man of genius is privileged only as far as he is genius. His dullness is as insupportable as any other dullness.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher

As it must not, so genius cannot be lawless; for it is even that constitutes its genius—the power of acting creatively under laws of its own origination.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) English Poet, Literary Critic, Philosopher

Genius may conceive but patient labor must consummate
Horace Mann (1796–1859) American Educator, Politician, Educationalist

Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius—and a lot of courage—to move in the opposite direction.
E. F. Schumacher (1911–77) German Mathematician, Economist

Those who danced were thought to be quite insane by those who could not hear the music.
Anonymous

Genius is no more than childhood recaptured at will, childhood equipped now with man’s physical means to express itself, and with the analytical mind that enables it to bring order into the sum of experience, involuntarily amassed.
Charles Baudelaire (1821–67) French Poet, Art Critic, Essayist, Translator

Every true genius is bound to be naive.
Friedrich Schiller (1759–1805) German Poet, Dramatist

The genius of a good leader is to leave behind him a situation which common sense, without the grace of genius, can deal with successfully.
Walter Lippmann (1889–1974) American Journalist, Political Commentator

When the creations of a genius collide with the mind of a layman, and produce an empty sound, there is little doubt as to which is at fault.
Salvador Dali (1904–89) Spanish Painter

Everyone is born a genius, but the process of living de-geniuses them.
Buckminster Fuller (1895–1983) American Inventor, Philosopher

A man of genius makes no mistakes. His errors are volitional and are the portals of discovery.
James Joyce (1882–1941) Irish Novelist, Poet

The greatest genius will never be worth much if he pretends to draw exclusively from his own resources.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German Poet

A genius can never expect to have a good time anywhere, if he is a genuine article, but America is about the last place in which life will be endurable at all for an inspired writer of any kind.
Samuel Butler

His genius he was quite content in one brief sentence to define; Of inspiration one percent, of perspiration, ninety nine.
Thomas Edison (1847–1931) American Inventor, Scientist, Entrepreneur

The drafts which true genius draws upon posterity, although they may not always be honored so soon as they are due, are sure to be paid with compound interest in the end.
Charles Caleb Colton (c.1780–1832) English Clergyman, Aphorist

Genius is childhood recaptured.
Jean Baudrillard (1929–2007) French Sociologist, Philosopher

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