Quotes on Genius

I think I'm a vocal genius, not a musical genius. I like background vocals. I consider myself a voice, not a singer. A voice is a sound, and singing is what you do with that sound.

The man of genius inspires us with a boundless confidence in our own powers.

All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred.

Force always attracts men of low morality, and I believe it to be an invariable rule that_x000D_ tyrants of genius are succeeded by scoundrels.

The consolations of space are nameless things. It was after the neurosis of winter. It was In the genius of summer that they blew up The statue of Jove among the boomy clouds. It took all day to quieten the sky And then to refill its emptiness again.

At that moment, in the sunset on Watership Down, there was offered to General Woundwort the opportunity to show whether he was really the leader of vision and genius which he believed himself to be, or whether he was no more than a tyrant with the courage and cunning of a pirate. For one beat of his pulse the lame rabbit's idea shone clearly before him. He grasped it and realized what it meant. The next, he had pushed it away from him.

Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.

Common sense is the genius of humanity.

Because you are a great lord, you believe yourself to be a great genius. You took the trouble to be born, but no more.

Our idea of what constitutes social good has advanced with the procession of the ages, from those desperate times when just to keep body and soul together was an achievement, to the great present when "good" includes an agreeable, stable civilization accessible to all, the opportunity of each to develop his particular genius and the privilege of mutual usefulness.

As human beings we have unlimited potential and imagination. The worst thing you can do is be a conformist and buy into conformity. It's the worst possible thing. It's better to be outrageous. It's better to hang out with the sages, the people open to possibilities, even the psychotics. You never know where you'll find the geniuses of our society.

Men of lofty genius sometimes accomplish the most when they work least, for their minds are occupied with their ideas and the perfection of their conceptions, to which they afterwards give form.

Great genius takes shape by contact with another great genius, but less by assimilation than by friction.

Nature is full of genius, full of the divinity; so that not a snowflake escapes its fashioning hand.

If the genius of invention were to reveal to-morrow the secret of immortality, of eternal beauty and youth, for which all humanity is aching, the same inexorable agents which prevent a mass from changing suddenly its velocity would likewise resist the force of the new knowledge until time gradually modifies human thought.

The rage for wanting to conclude is one of the most deadly and most fruitless manias to befall humanity. Each religion and each philosophy has pretended to have God to itself, to measure the infinite, and to know the recipe for happiness. What arrogance and what nonsense! I see, to the contrary, that the greatest geniuses and the greatest works have never concluded.

The tragedy is that society (your school, your boss, your government, your family) keeps drumming the genius part out. The problem is that our culture has engaged in a Faustian bargain, in which we trade our genius and artistry for apparent stability.

An ordinary mistake is one that leads to a dead end, while a profound mistake is one that leads to progress. Anyone can make an ordinary mistake, but it takes a genius to make a profound mistake.

Genius creates, and taste preserves. Taste is the good sense of genius; without taste, genius is only sublime folly.

But since he had The genius to be loved, why let him have The justice to be honoured in his grave.

If a man will comprehend the richness and variety of the universe, and inspire his mind with a due measure of wonder and awe, he must contemplate the human intellect not only on its heights of genius but in its abysses of ineptitude.