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Genius Quotes


"Genius... is the capacity to see ten things where the ordinary man sees one."


"Being stuck is a position few of us like. We want something new but cannot let go of the old - old ideas, beliefs, habits, even thoughts. We are out of contact with our own genius. Sometimes we know we are stuck; sometimes we don't. In both cases we have to DO something."



"I do feel very strongly that this is one of the things which people need encouragement to sort out, because I have this very strong feeling that everybody is probably a genius at something, it's just a question of finding this."


"Genius is more often found in a cracked pot than in a whole one."


"Everything I do, I feel is genius. Whether it is or it isn't."


"Real genius of moral insight is a motor which will start any engine."



"If for instance the sentiment possessing for the moment the empire of our mind is sorrow, will not the genius sharpen the sorrow and the sorrow purify the genius? Together, will they not be like a cut diamond for which language is only the wax on which they stamp their imprint? I believe that genius, thus awakened, has no need to seek out details, that it scarcely pauses to reflect, that it never thinks of unity: I believe that the details come naturally without search by the poet, that inspiration takes the place of reflection and as for unity, I think there is no unity so perfect as that which results from a heart filled with a single idea...The nature of genius is related to that of instinct; it's operation is both simple and marvelous."


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


"Sometimes an act of common sense is indistinguishable from an act of genius."


"Genius is nothing but continued attention."


"The definition of genius, really, should be that that person can do what the rest of us have to learn how to do."


"I have learned that any fool can write a bad ad, but that it takes a real genius to keep his hands off a good one."


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


"Genius begins great works; labor alone finishes them."


"Genius is the capacity for productive reaction against one's training."


"The eye of genius has always a plaintive expression, and its natural language is pathos."


"It is a great thing, indeed, to make a proper use of the poetical forms, as also of compounds and strange words. But the greatest thing by far is to be a master of metaphor. It is the one thing that cannot be learnt from others; and it is also a sign of genius, since a good metaphor implies an intuitive perception of the similarity in dissimilars."


"Everyone is a genius at least once a year. The real geniuses simply have their bright ideas closer together."


"Every complete man has his genius. True virtue is genius."


"Genius, throughout history, has been found difficult to classify because it varies in amount: It's rare to find a genius in the context of the noun, but most people, if not all, have a bit of genius in them in the context of the adjective."


"Genius is that which forces the inertia of humanity to learn."


"Genius is rarely able to give any account of its own processes."


"Genius not only diagnoses the situation but supplies the answers."


"No great mind has ever existed without a touch of madness."


"The only way you can get good, unless you're a genius, is to copy. That's the best thing. Just steal."


"Surely, if knowledge is valuable, it can never be good policy in a country far wealthier than Tuscany, to allow a genius like Mr. Dalton's, to be employed in the drudgery of elementary instruction."


"Genius is not perfected, it is deepened. It does not so much interpret the world as fertilize itself with it."


"Of all the projects I've worked on, I've never worked with another director like Billy Friedkin. I think he's a genius."


"A genius is one who can do anything except make a living."


"Genius is another word for magic, and the whole point of magic is that it is inexplicable."
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