Quotes on Genius

Neither genius, fame, nor love show the greatness of the soul. Only kindness can do that.

It is the privilege of true genius, And especially genius who opens up a new path, To make great mistakes with impunity

Since biological change occurs slowly and cultural changes occur in every generation, it is futile to try to explain the fleeting phenomena of culture by a racial constant. We can often explain them-in terms of contact with other peoples, of individual genius, of geography-but not by racial differences.

Science would not be what it is if there had not been a Galileo, a Newton or a Lavoisier, any more than music would be what it is if Bach, Beethoven and Wagner had never lived. The world as we know it is the product of its geniuses-and there may be evil as well as beneficent genius-and to deny that fact, is to stultify all history, whether it be that of the intellectual or the economic world.

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

There is no work of genius which has not been the delight of mankind, no word of genius to which the human heart and soul have not sooner or later responded.

Genius is talent exercised with courage.

It is not genius, nor glory, nor love that reflects the greatness of the human soul; it is kindness.

A fine genius in his own country is like gold in the mine.

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. ... In art nothing worth doing can be done without genius; in science even a very moderate capacity can contribute to a supreme achievement.

There is no limit to the ingenuity of man if it is properly and vigorously applied under conditions of peace and justice.

Genius lasts longer than Beauty. That accounts for the fact that we all take such pains to over-educate ourselves.

People of humor are always in some degree people of genius.

The source of genius is imagination alone, the refinement of the senses that sees what others do not see, or sees them differently.

I picture the vast realm of the sciences as an immense landscape scattered with patches of dark and light. The goal towards which we must work is either to extend the boundaries of the patches of light, or to increase their number. One of these tasks falls to the creative genius; the other requires a sort of sagacity combined with perfectionism.

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

Freedom is the only law which genius knows.

The greatest genius will not be worth much if he pretends to draw exclusively from his own resources

The deep waters of time will flow over us: only a few men of genius will lift a head above the surface, and though doomed eventually to pass into the same silence, will fight against oblivion and for a long time hold their own.

Mediocrity has no greater consolation than in the thought that genius is not immortal.

Talent is that which is in a man's power; genius is that in whose power a man is.