Best 2088 quotes in «genius quotes» category

Perform your task and I shall know you. Perform your task and your genius shall befriend the more.

Perhaps if I had made his life more difficult, he would have written less, or less freely. I cannot claim to be the midwife to genius, but if I have not facilitated,I have at least not, as many women might have done, prevented. This is a very small virtue to claim, a very negative achievement to hang my whole life on.

Perhaps then one reason why we have no great poet, novelist or critic writing today is that we refuse to allow words their liberty. We pin them down to one meaning, their useful meaning: the meaning which makes us catch the train, the meaning which makes us pass the examination.

Perseverance is the bridge between talent and genius.

Philosophy is to the mind of the architect as eyesight to his steps. The Term 'genius' when applied to him simply means a man who understands what others only know about. A poet, artist or architect, necessarily 'understands' in this sense and is likely, if not careful, to have the term 'genius' applied to him; in which case he will no longer be thought human, trustworthy or companionable. Whatever may be his medium of expression he utters truth with manifest beauty of thought. If he is an architect, his building is natural. In him, philosophy and genius live by each other, but the combination is subject to popular suspicion and appellation 'genius' likely to settle him--so far as the public is concerned.

Places of genius challenge us. They are difficult. They do not earn their place in history with ethnic restaurants or street festivals, but by provoking us, making demands of us. Crazy, unrealistic, beautiful demands.

Por fortuna, Byron nunca entendió ese defecto de su pie derecho como lo que realmente era: la marca de la divinidad que lo hizo poeta. Si no hubiera sido por ella, dado su carácter arrogante y licencioso, tal vez no habría sido más que un aristócrata decadente, abusivo con sus amigos y chupador de la sangre de sus amores; pero la conciencia física de su imperfección, ese pie que dejaba siempre una raya larga en la arena, lo obligaba a pensar y a sufrir, y su genio encontró en ese encogerse sobre sí mismo la ocasión de destilar unas gotas de sabiduría divina.

[...] Popæus Sabinus [...] maximisque provinciis per quatuor et viginti annos impositus; nullam ob eximiam artem , sed quod par negotiis , neque supra erat.

Powerful weakness has to be regarded, as useful.

Pseudo-artists think that being an artist means opposing whatever seems to be an establishment. That is not creative at all. True creativity is the ability to gain perspective wherever you may have missed it before.

Rather than being medicalized or romanticized, mental disorders, or mental dis-eases, should be understood as nothing less or more than what they are, an expression of our deepest human nature. By recognizing their traits in ourselves and reflecting upon them, we may be able both to contain them and to put them to good use. This is, no doubt, the highest form of genius.

Real geniuses would like that what we think of ourselves is true.

Remember how shocked I was to discover Amazon had over 8,000 branding books? Well this I know: when a specific discipline has that many opinions on one subject, something fundamental is always missing. Always. The omitted fundamental? A definition and a universal reason for branding. And it came down to four words:

Renounce poor work. Shun trivial work. Entertain respectable work. Welcome superior work. Honor transcendent work.

Robin Williams is one more example, that genius people are genius for a reason, and that reason is feeling without reasoning. Depression is for sensitive people. Sensitive people sense the world as it is, and they can't cope with it. Sensitive people need a better, more tender world to live in. Matter of fact, we all do.

Salvador Dalí’s aberrations are partly explicable. Perhaps they are a way of assuring himself that he is not commonplace. The two qualities that Dali unquestionably possesses are a gift for drawing and an atrocious egoism. ‘At seven’, he says in the first paragraph of his book, ‘I wanted to be Napoleon. And my ambition has been growing steadily ever since.’ This is worded in a deliberately startling way, but no doubt it is substantially true. Such feelings are common enough. ‘I knew I was a genius’, somebody once said to me, ‘long before I knew what I was going to be a genius about.

Roses do not bloom hurriedly; for beauty, like any masterpiece, takes time to blossom.

Schopenhauer said only men had the total objectivity necessary for genius, and that you only had to look at a woman’s shape to see that she wasn’t intended for much mental or physical work.

Shatter the limits in your mind and you shatter the limits in your life.

Seldom can one attain victory in ware fare without allies. Some allies provide direct assistance, the two forces battling side by side. Other allies provide logistical support, whether weapons and combat equipment or simply food and other life needs. Sometimes the most effective use of an ally is as a threat, his very presence creating a distraction or forcing the common enemy to deploy resources away from the main Battlefront. But standing by an ally doesn't necessarily mean one will always agree with that ally. Or with his goals or methods.

Self-reliance is the highest expression of self-respect.

She did not need a library; she was a library.

See what others cannot see. Know what others cannot know. Do what others cannot do. Be what others cannot be. Dazzle people with your mind. Enchant people with your heart. Spellbound people with your soul. Fascinate people with your life.

She had often been told that genius was one step from insanity - although no one had said if it was the step before or the step after.

She has a genius,” distinguished Simon Iff. “Her dancing is a species of angelic possession, if I may coin a phrase. She comes off the stage from an interpretation of the subtlest and most spiritual music of Chopin or Tschaikowsky; and forthwith proceeds to scold, to wheedle, or to blackmail. Can you explain that reasonably by talking of ‘two sides to her character’? It is nonsense to do so. The only analogy is that of noble thinker and his stupid, dishonest, and immoral secretary. The dictation is taken down correctly, and given to the world. The last person to be enlightened by it is the secretary himself! So, I take it, is the case with all genius; only in many cases the man is in more or less conscious harmony with his genius, and strives eternally to make himself a worthier instrument for his master’s touch. The clever man, so-called, the man of talent, shuts out his genius by setting up his conscious will as a positive entity. The true man of genius deliberately subordinates himself, reduces himself to a negative, and allows his genius to play through him as It will. We all know how stupid we are when we try to do things. Seek to make any other muscle work as consistently as your heart does without your silly interference—you cannot keep it up for forty-eight hours. All this, which is truth ascertained and certain, lies at the base of the Taoistic doctrine of non-action; the plan of doing everything by seeming to do nothing. Yield yourself utterly to the Will of Heaven, and you become the omnipotent instrument of that Will. Most systems of mysticism have a similar doctrine; but that it is true in action is only properly expressed by the Chinese. Nothing that any man can do will improve that genius; but the genius needs his mind, and he can broaden that mind, fertilize it with knowledge of all kinds, improve its powers of expression; supply the genius, in short, with an orchestra instead of a tin whistle. All our little great men, our one-poem poets, our one-picture painters, have merely failed to perfect themselves as instruments.

Simple is clever. Complicated just means you haven’t been clever enough to reduce ‘it’ to its essence.

She was beginning to realize that no amount of genius ever compensates for, nor excuses, a paucity of kindness, integrity, and unconflicted devotion.

Showing up is 80% of life.

Since everyone can’t be a genius, most people follow the path of ‘skillful corruption’ to achieve success in life. Just as you can’t move in a straight line when the road itself is curvaceous, it is impossible to succeed in a society full of corrupt people by honest means.

Si noti il meraviglioso «Mi sembra...» iniziale, che ricorda l’«Io penso...» con cui Darwin introduce nei suoi taccuini la grande idea che le specie evolvono, o l’«esitazione» di cui parla Faraday quando nel suo libro introduce la rivoluzionaria idea di campo elettrico. Il genio esita.

Skill follows the rules, talent breaks the rules, mastery shatters the rules, but genius makes its own rules.

Skill gives you legs to jog, talent gives you legs to run, brilliance gives you legs to sprint, but genius gives you wings to fly.

Skill is in your mind. Talent is in your heart. Genius is in your soul.

Shine your light so bright, and no one will need a telescope to see you.

Si percibo en otra persona nada más que lo superficial, percibo principalmente las diferencias, lo que nos separa. Si penetro hasta el núcleo, percibo nuestra identidad, el hecho de nuestra hermandad.

Skill gives you the sky, talent gives you the stars, and genius gives you the universe.

Skill reaches the ceiling, talent reaches the mountaintop, excellence reaches the sky, but genius reaches the stars.

So, how close are love and genius, really? We know that they are both mentioned far more than lived.

So it comes down to scarcity, one product or service having qualities you won’t find everywhere or ideally, anywhere. It’s the job of every brand to seek that out as their standard, their stamp.

Some people see their blessings as curses. Some see their curses as blessings.

Some days are better than others. The same can be said about people.

Some people today are wandering generalities instead of meaningful specifics because they have failed to discover and mine the wealth of potentials in them.

Solitude, the safeguard of mediocrity, is to genius the stern friend, the cold, obscure shelter where moult the wings which will bear it farther than suns and stars. He who should inspire and lead his race must be defended from travelling with the souls of other men, from living, breathing, reading, and writing in the daily, time-worn yoke of their opinions. "In the morning, — solitude;" said Pythagoras; that Nature may speak to the imagination, as she does never in company, and that her favorite may make acquaintance with those divine strengths which disclose themselves to serious and abstracted thought. 'Tis very certain that Plato, Plotinus, Archimedes, Hermes, Newton, Milton, Wordsworth, did not live in a crowd, but descended into it from time to time as benefactors: and the wise instructor will press this point of securing to the young soul in the disposition of time and the arrangements of living, periods and habits of solitude.

Sometimes I think I am a strange, strange creature -- something not of earth, nor yet of heaven, nor of hell. I think at times I am a little thing fallen on the earth by mistake: a thing thrown among foreign, unfitting elements, where every little door is closed -- every Why unanswered, and itself knows not where to lay its head. I feel a deadly certainty in some moments that the wild world contains not one moment of rest for me, that there will never be any rest, that my woman's-soul will go on asking long, long centuries after my woman's-body is laid in its grave.

Sometimes geniuses create nothing new, they organize already existing material into something completely useful in other ways

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

Sooner or later the intellectual will die with his mouth open. And they will have a label for it, yes, and ah, a distinct name to honour his foolishness

Sometimes she arches away from me and wears a light halo of genius about her.

Somos luz, ¿sabe?, nada más que luz: somos la luz que se les ofrece a los bateadores de críquet al final del día, los ojos brillantes del amado, el resplandor de la cerilla de seguridad en la ventana del edificio alto, las estrellas y nebulosas en plena gloria nocturna, la luna creciente a través de los cables del tranvía, la lámpara de nafta brillando sobre la carretilla del vendedor ambulante… Cuando perdimos nuestro ser etéreo y nos encarnamos, nos ralentizamos, espesamos y congelamos en… -se agarró ambos lados de la cara y los agitó-…, en esto. El alma misma es un recuerdo que conservamos de los tiempos en que nos desplazábamos a la velocidad de la luz y con su densidad. La primera etapa de nuestra Disciplina aquí consiste en aprender cómo se recupera esa rarefacción, esa condición luminosa, para ser de nuevo capaces de ir a donde deseemos, a través de los cuernos de linterna, a través del cristal y, con el tiempo, aunque corramos el riesgo de partirnos por la mitad, a través del espato de Islandia, que es una expresión en cristal de la velocidad de la Tierra mientras corre por el Éter, alterando las dimensiones y creando una refracción doble… -Se detuvo ante la puerta-. Coma algo, es usted un buen chico.

So the whole war is beause we can't talk to each other.