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Genius Quotes

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Genius Quotes

“The growing complexity of science, technology, and organization does not imply either a growing knowledge or a growing need for knowledge in the general population. On the contrary, the increasingly complex processes tend to lead to increasingly simple and easily understood products. The genius of mass production is precisely in its making more products more accessible, both economically and intellectually to more people.”

PeopleNeedsDoeProcessSimpleTechnologyGrowingProductsGeniusMassUnderstoodOrganizationComplexesPopulationProductionsContraryComplexityScience TechnologyMass ProductionGrowing Knowledge
Author:Thomas Sowell
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“True majorities, in a TV-dominated and anti-intellectual age, may need sound bites and flashing lights and I am not against supplying such lures if they draw children into even a transient concern with science. But every classroom has one [Oliver] Sacks , one [Eric] Korn, or one [Jonathan] Miller , usually a lonely child with a passionate curiosity about nature, and a zeal that overcomes pressures for conformity. Do not the one in fifty deserve their institutions as well magic places, like cabinet museums, that can spark the rare flames of genius?”

IfsNeedsWellsMayChildrenLightAgeSoundMagicTvsGeniusIntellectualDrawsDeserveConcernLonelyOvercomingPressureInstitutionsMajorityCuriosityPassionateFlamesFiftyConformityMuseumsBitesSparksClassroomZealCabinetsTransientEricLureSound BitesFlashing LightsLonely Child
Book:Dinosaur in a haystack: reflections in natural history
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“If nature has been frugal in her gifts and endowments, there is the more need of art to supply her defects. If she has been generous and liberal, know that she still expects industry and application on our part, and revenges herself in proportion to our negligent ingratitude. The richest genius, like the most fertile soil, when uncultivated, shoots up into the rankest weeds; and instead of vines and olives for the pleasure and use of man, produces, to its slothful owner, the most abundant crop of poisons.”

IfsKnowsMenNeedsHas BeensArtStillsUsePleasureProduceIndustryGeniusRevengeGenerousPoisonSoilProportionOwnersWeedApplicationDefectsCropsVinesFertileOlivesIngratitudeEndowmentFrugalFertile Soil
Book:Philosophical Essays: On Morals, Literature, and Politics
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“I have often noticed that the need for cash and the production of a masterpiece just don't coincide with me. Money will hit me at a big off-period and genius will hit me in starvation, that is, I often get the money when I don't think I deserve it and have been lolling around for days and days thinking the most abysmal thoughts.”

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Book:A gesture of belonging: letters from Bessie Head, 1965-1979
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“By cultivating an interest in a few good books which contain the result of the toil or the quintessence of the genius of some of the most gifted thinkers of the world, we need not live on the marsh and in the mists. The slopes and ridges invite us.”

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Book:Christianity and Humanity ...: Ed., with a Memoir
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“The age-long history of thinking on gravitation, too, was erased from the collective consciousness, and that force somehow became the serendipitous child of Newton's genius. The new attitude is well illustrated by the anecdote of the apple, a legend spread by Voltaire, one of the most active and vehement erasers of the past. ... The need to build the myth of an ex nihilo creation of modern science gave rise to much impassioned rhetoric.”

ThinkingNeedsWellsChildrenLongAgePastForceConsciousnessAttitudeModernCreationGeniusSpreadActiveMythApplesCollectivesLegendsRhetoricExesNewtonModern ScienceAnecdotesGravitationCollective ConsciousnessErasersImpassionedVehementNew Attitude
Author:Lucio Russo
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“Nonviolent Communication is a powerful tool for peace and partnership. It shows us how to listen empathically and also communicate our authentic feelings and needs. Marshall Rosenberg has a genius for developing and teaching practical skills urgently needed for a less violent, more caring world.”

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Author:Riane Eisler
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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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Author:William J. Brennan
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“In order for us [people] to progress, we need brilliance and brilliance isn't fair and it's not polite and we can't grow it. It happens. Genius happens and it doesn't always happen in a zip code where we can access it. Therefore, we kind of need [Internet] not to keep tabs on everybody but we need to give them access to everybody else.”

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Author:Augusten Burroughs
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“The good diarist writes either for himself alone or for a posterity so distant that it can safely hear every secret and justly weigh every motive. For such an audience there is need neither of affectation nor of restraint. Sincerity is what they ask, detail, and volume; skill with the pen comes in conveniently, but brilliance is not necessary; genius is a hindrance even; and should you know your business and do it manfully, posterity will let you off mixing with great men, reporting famous affairs, or having lain with the first ladies in the land.”

KnowsMenNeedsShouldWritingFirstsAsksSecretAudienceLandGeniusSkillsAffairDetailsMotiveGreat MenPensSincerityVolumeRestraintDiariesPosterityBrillianceMixingHindranceFirst Lady
Book:Collected essays
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“One wants in a Prime Minister a good many things, but not very great things. He should be clever but need not be a genius; he should be conscientious but by no means strait-laced; he should be cautious but never timid, bold but never venturesome; he should have a good digestion, genial manners, and, above all, a thick skin.”

WantNeedsShouldMeanPoliticsGeniusShould HaveSkinsCleverGreat ThingsMannersMinistersGood ManPrimeThickPrime MinisterCautiousDigestionThick SkinBe CautiousGood Digestion
Book:The Prime Minister (Unabridged): Parliamentary Novel from the prolific English novelist, known for The Warden, Barchester Towers, Doctor Thorne, The Last Chronicle of Barset, Can You Forgive Her? and Phineas Finn
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“Superficial knowledge ... is hurtful to those who possess true genius; for it necessarily draws them away from their main object, wastes their industry over details and subjects foreign to their needs and natural talent, and lastly does not serve, as they flatter themselves, to prove the breadth of their mind. In all ages there have been men of very moderate intelligence who knew much, and so on the contrary, men of the highest intelligence who knew very little. Ignorance is not lack of intelligence, nor knowledge a proof of genius.”

MenNeedsMindLittlesDoeHas BeensAgeNaturalSubjectsTalentObjectsIgnoranceIndustryGeniusProveWasteHighestDrawsDetailsProofContrarySuperficialModeratesHurtfulBreadthNatural TalentTrue GeniusSuperficial Knowledge
Author:Luc de Clapiers
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“Creativity does not belong exclusively to professional artists and geniuses; it is the birthright of every single human being. Creativity is our common heritage. You don’t need to quit your job and move to Paris in order to lay claim to this heritage - all you have to do is clear some space in your life for whimsy, invention, sensory pleasure, and play. Most of all, you have to learn how to follow your curiosity more than your fear.”

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Author:Elizabeth Gilbert
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“It is certainly true that most men need some kind of a God. A few, and they are the men of genius, do not bow to an alien law. The rest try to justify their doings and misdoings, their thinking and existence (at least the menial side of it), to some one else, whether it be the personal God of the Jews, or a beloved, respected, and revered human being. It is only in this way that they can bring their lives under the social law. . . .”

ThinkingMenWayNeedsTryingHumansKindLawSocialSidesHuman BeingsExistenceHe ManGeniusJewAliensBelovedJustifyBowsDoings
Author:Otto Weininger
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“Object to merit and distinction, and you're setting your face against quality, independence, originality, genius against all the richness and variety of life. When you hold back the successful, you penalize those who need help.”

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Book:The collected speeches of Margaret Thatcher
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“I never felt in competition with anybody in war photography. You're lucky to get your ass in and out again. It's as simple as that. It's the easiest photography in the world to shoot somebody who's been shot up. It doesn't take a genius. That's easy. The only thing you need to know is your photography. Get in and if you're lucky get out. And get as close as you can get.”

IfsKnowsWorldNeedsWarFeltEasySimpleGeniusLuckyPhotographyShotsCompetitionAss
Author:David Douglas Duncan
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“Natural abilities are like natural plants, that need pruning by study; and studies themselves do give forth directions too much at large, except they be bounded in by experience.”

NeedsGivingNaturalAbilityStudyToo MuchTalentGeniusPlantNatural AbilityPruningGreen Plants
Book:The works of Francis Bacon, Baron of Verulam, Viscount St. Alban, and Lord High Chancellor of England, in five volumes
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“Autism is a big continuum, going from someone who remains nonverbal, all the way up to geniuses on Silicon Valley. And some kids are visual thinkers like me. Other kids are pattern thinkers - your mathematicians, your programmers. And there are others, they are word thinkers. Uneven skills. You need to take the thing that they're good at and you need to work on developing it.”

WayNeedsBigsKidsGeniusSkillsRemainsPatternsLike MeDevelopingVisualsThinkerValleysAutismMathematicianProgrammersSiliconSilicon ValleyContinuumNonverbal
Author:Temple Grandin
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“Before you go into what is essentially a competition, you have to have that confidence. You have to ask yourself, "Are they looking for a guy my height? My age? I've got a shot." And if there are nine guys auditioning and they're all gorgeous, I have an advantage, because gorgeous guys are a dime a dozen. But if they need someone else - like a goofy guy with bad hair who is just okay - then that's me. And finally, the other 2 percent who audition are geniuses that I could never touch.”

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Author:Tom Hanks
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“Dear God, I prayed, all unafraid (as we're inclined to do), I do not need a handsome man but let him be like You; I do not need one big and strong nor yet so very tall, nor need he be some genius, or wealthy, Lord, at all; but let his head be high, dear God, and let his eye be clear, his shoulders straight, whate'er his state, whate'er his earthly sphere; and let his face have character, a ruggedness if soul, and let his whole life show, dear God, a singleness of goal; then when he comes (as he will come) with quiet eyes aglow, I'll understand that he's the man I prayed for long ago.”

IfsMenNeedsLongSoulStatesWholeCharacterShowsBigsEyeFacesStrongGoalLordClearLike YouGeniusQuietDearWhole LifeShouldersHis EyesWealthyTallSpheresLong AgoHandsomeUnafraidDear GodSinglenessHandsome Men
Book:Footprints of a Pilgrim
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“To accept your country without betraying it, you must love it for that which shows what it might become. America -- this monument to the genius of ordinary men and women, this place where hope becomes capacity, this long, halting turn of 'no' into the 'yes' -- needs citizens who love it enough to re-imagine and re-make it.”

MenNeedsLongCountryEnoughShowsMightAmericaTurnsAcceptingImagineGeniusCitizensOrdinaryMen And WomenCapacityBetrayMonumentOrdinary Man
Author:Cornel West
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“Poor, unhappy Erik! Shall we pity him? Shall we curse him? He asked only to be 'some one,' like everybody else. But he was too ugly! And he had to hide his genius or use it to play tricks with, when, with an ordinary face, he would have been one of the most distinguished of mankind! He had a heart that could have held the entire empire of the world; and, in the end, he had to content himself with a cellar. Ah, yes, we must need pity the Opera ghost.”

WorldNeedsHeartHas BeensEndsPlayUseFacesPoorMankindGeniusOrdinaryUglyTricksGhostUnhappyPityCurseEmpiresOperaDistinguishedCellars
Book:THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA (Mystery & Horror Series): Gothic Classic Based on True Events at the Paris Opera
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“As a species, we have evolved to survive. And the way we do it is by straining and straining and, at last, every few generaitons, giving brith to genius. The one who invents the wheel. And light. And flight. The one who builds a city, a nation, an empire...I'll put it bluntly. Human beings are free excpet when humanity needs them. Maybe humanity needs you. To do something. Maybe humanity needs me - to find out what you're good for.”

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Author:Orson Scott Card
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“In my profession it isn’t a question of telling good literature from bad. Really good literature is seldom appreciated in its own day. The best authors die poor, the bad ones make money — it’s always been like that. What do I, an agent, get out of a literary genius who won’t be discovered for another hundred years? I’ll be dead myself then. Successful incompetents are what I need.”

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Book:The City of Dreaming Books
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“Finding the center of strength within ourselves is in the long run the best contribution we can make to our fellow men. ... One person with indigenous inner strength exercises a great calming effect on panic among people around him. This is what our society needs - not new ideas and inventions; important as these are, and not geniuses and supermen, but persons who can be, that is, persons who have a center of strength within themselves.”

PeopleMenNeedsPersonsLongImportantIdeasRunningEffectsGeniusExerciseFindingsFellowsInventionContributionOur SocietyInner StrengthPanicLong RunsNew IdeasFellow ManIndigenousCalmingStrength WithinCalming Effect
Author:Rollo May
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“Beauty is a form of Genius--is higher, indeed, than Genius, as it needs no explanation. It is one of the great facts of the world, like sunlight, or springtime, or the reflection in the dark waters of that silver shell we call the moon. It cannot be questioned. It has divine right of sovereignty. It makes princes of those who have it.”

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Book:The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde: Novel, Short Stories, Poetry, Essays and Plays
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