Genius Quotes
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The logic is backwards. Genius is the result of doing what you love, not a prerequisite for it.
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Social laughter is momentary, soon burns itself out and passes away like the fire and smokes of straw, but genius shakes the very skies with its lasting, inextinguishable laughter.
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We current Justices read the Constitution in the only way that we can: as Twentieth Century Americans. We look to the history of the time of framing and to the intervening history of interpretation. But the ultimate question must be, what do the words of the text mean in our time. For the genius of the Constitution rests not in any static meaning it might have had in a world that is dead and gone, but in the adaptability of its great principles to cope with current problems and current needs.
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A man of genius is not a man who sees more than other men do. On the contrary, it is very often found that he is absentminded andobserves much less than other people.... Why is it that the public have such an exaggerated respect for him--after he is dead? The reason is that the man of genius understands the importance of the few things he sees.
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Every new invention has been a protest of genius against the masses.
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Weaknesses in men of genius are usually an exaggeration of their personal feeling; in the hands of feeble imitators they become the most flagrant blunders. Entire schools have been founded on misinterpretations of certain aspects of the masters. Lamentable mistakes have resulted from the thoughtless enthusiasm with which men have sought inspiration from the worst qualities of remarkable artists because they are unable to reproduce the sublime elements in their work.
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Genius is nothing more than an extraordinary manifestation of the body.
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The light of genius is sometimes so resplendent as to make a man walk through life, amid glory and acclamation; but it burns very dimly and low when carried into "the valley of the shadow of death." But faith is like the evening star, shining into our souls the more brightly, the deeper is the night of death in which they sink.
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Dawkins, as I have said, tells us that there is “absolutely no reason” to think that the Unmoved Mover, First Cause, etc. is omnipotent, omniscient, good, and so forth. Perhaps what he meant to say was “absolutely no reason, apart from the many thousands of pages of detailed philosophical argumentation for this conclusion that have been produced over the centuries by thinkers of genius, and which I am not going to bother trying to answer.” So, a slip of the pen, perhaps.
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That's when I heard the sounds of a certified genius spinning around in circles like a dog chasing its tail.
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One of the marks of true genius is a quality of abundance. A rich, rollicking abundance, enough to give indigestion to ordinary people. Great artists turn it out in rolls, in swatches. They cover whole ceilings with paintings, they chip out a mountainside in stone, they write not one novel but a shelf full. It follows that some of their work is better than other. As much as a third of it may be pretty bad. Shall we say this unevenness is the mark of their humanity - of their proud mortality as well as of their immortality?
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Genius is a will-o'-the-wisp if it lacks a solid foundation of perseverence and fanatical tenacity. This is the most important thing in all of human life.
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It seems to me that even the least of the human race is touched with genius when mad with love.
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Will you still want me if I'm poor, Kat?" "What kind of question is that?" "No. Seriously. You're the planner. Simon's the genius. The Bagshaws are the muscle. And Gabrielle is . . . Gabrielle. But what am I, Kat? I'm the guy who writes the checks." "No. You're the most naturally gifted inside man I have ever seen. And I was raised by Bobby Bishop." She made him look into her eyes. "I don't care about your money.
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Either I'm a genius or I'm mad, which is it? "No," I said, "I can't be mad because nobody's put me away; therefore I'm a genius." Genius is a form of madness and we're all that way. But I used to be coy about it, like me guitar playing. But if there's such a thing as genius - I am one. And if there isn't, I don't care.
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Persons of genius are, ex vi termini, more individual than any other people - less capable, consequently, of fitting themselves, without hurtful compression, into any of the small number of moulds which society provides in order to save its members the trouble of forming their character.
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It made him proud that 29 months in the service had not blunted his genius for ineptitude.
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For a few minutes of every day, every man becomes a genius. This is the tragedy of life.
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It takes no genius to observe that a one-man band never gets very big
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Rules and models destroy genius and art.
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Too often we forget that genius, too, depends upon the data within its reach, that even Archimedes could not have devised Edison's inventions.
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I was painfully shy when I was younger but at some point you've gotta grow up. I think the genius in the man-boy thing is you tap into a woman's motherly instincts.
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Genius is the act of solving a problem in a way no one has solved it before.
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Genius still means to me, in my Russian fastidiousness and pride of phrase, a unique dazzling gift. The gift of James Joyce, and not the talent of Henry James.
