Best ordinary & genius Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings

“There are two kinds of success. One is the rare kind that comes to the person who has the power to do what no one else has the power to do. That is genius. But the average person who wins what we call success is not a genius. That person is a man or woman who has merely the ordinary qualities that they share with their fellows, but has developed those ordinary qualities to a more than ordinary degree.”

Men Kind Persons Two Success Winning Quality Share Genius Degrees Ordinary Fellows Perseverance Average Average Person Perserverance

Author:Theodore Roosevelt

“The psychical condition of men's minds may be compared with a set of bells close together, and so arranged that in the ordinary man a bell rings only when one beside it sounds, and the vibration lasts only a moment. In the genius, when a bell sounds it vibrates so strongly that it sets in action the whole series, and remains in action throughout life. The latter kind of movement often gives rise to extraordinary conditions and absurd impulses, that may last for weeks together and that form the basis of the supposed kinship of genius with insanity.”

“With ordinary men the moments which are united in a close continuity out of the original discrete multiplicity are very few, and the course of their lives resembles a little brook, whereas with the genius it is more like a mighty river into which all the little rivulets flow from afar; that is to say, the universal comprehension of genius vibrates to no experience in which all the individual moments have not been gathered up and stored.”

Men Littles Moments Courses Individual United Genius Ordinary Flow Rivers Universal Originals Continuity Comprehension Brooks Multiplicity Afar Ordinary Man Vibrate Discrete

Book:Sex & Character

Source: Sex & Character

“We meet With few utterly dull and stupid souls: the sublime and transcendent are still fewer; the generality of mankind stand between these two extremes: the interval is filled with multitudes of ordinary geniuses, but all very useful, and the ornaments and supports of the commonwealth.”

Stills Two Soul Support Mankind Stupid Genius Ordinary Filled Extremes Dull Mediocrity Fewer Multitudes Sublime Transcendent Ornaments Intervals Commonwealth Generalities Two Extremes

Author:Jean de la Bruyere

“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?”

Source: The Nature of the Artist: An Address Delivered at the Dedication Ceremonies for Lee Pattison Recital Hall, Wilbur Hall, Mary Kimberly Residence Hall

“The ordinary manner of spending their time, is the only way of judging of people's inclination and genius.”

People Way Judging Genius Ordinary Spending Inclination

Book:The accidence: or, First rudiments of English grammar. Designed for the use of young ladies

Source: The accidence: or, First rudiments of English grammar. Designed for the use of young ladies

“Genius is the capacity to see ten things where the ordinary man sees one, and the man of talent sees two or three, plus the ability to register that multiple perception in the material of his art.”

Men Art Two Three Ability Talent He Man Materials Genius Ten Perception Ordinary Capacity Plus Multiple Register Ordinary Man

Author:Ezra Pound

“I should say tact was worth much more than wealth as a road to leadership.... I mean that subtle apprehension which teaches a person how to do and say the right thing at the right time. It coexists with very ordinary qualities, and yet many great geniuses are without it. Of all human qualities I consider it the most convenient--not always the highest; yet I would rather have it than many more shining qualities.”

Should Humans Mean Persons Leadership Wealth Quality Teach Genius Highest Ordinary Shining Right Thing Subtle Right Time Convenient Apprehension Coexist Tact Human Qualities

Author:M. E. W. Sherwood

“Success in business does not depend upon genius. Any young man of ordinary intelligence who is normally sound and not afraid to work should succeed in spite of obstacles and handicaps if he plays the game fairly and keeps everlastingly at it.”

Ifs Men Should Doe Play Success Young Games Sound Depends Genius Succeed Ordinary Obstacles Young Man Spite Not Afraid Business Success Handicaps

Author:James Cash Penney

“Men of genius are often considered superstitious, but the fact is, the fineness of their nerve renders them more alive to the supernatural than ordinary men.”

Men Facts Alive Genius Ordinary Nerves Superstitious Ordinary Man

Book:Correspondence and Table-talk: With a Memoir

Source: Correspondence and Table-talk: With a Memoir

“There are ancient and modern poems which breathe, in their entirety and in every detail, the divine breath of irony. In such poemsthere lives a real transcendental buffoonery. Their interior is permeated by the mood which surveys everything and rises infinitely above everything limited, even above the poet's own art, virtue, and genius; and their exterior form by the histrionic style of an ordinary good Italian buffo.”

“Organization is simply the means by which the acts of ordinary men can be made to add up to extraordinary results. To this idea of progress that does not wait on some lucky break, some chance discovery, or some rare stroke of genius, but instead is achieved through systematic, cumulative effort, the engineer has contributed brilliantly.”

“The essence of modernity is that progress no longer waits on genius; instead we have learned to put our faith in the organized efforts of ordinary men. Science is as old as the race, but the effective organization of science is new. Ancient science, like placer mining, was a pursuit of solitary prospectors. Nuggets of truth were found, but the total wealth of knowledge increased slowly. Modern man began to transform this world when he began to mine the hidden veins of knowledge systematically.”

“We are having wool pulled over our eyes if we let ourselves be convinced that scientists, taken as a group, are anything special in the way of brains. They are very ordinary professional men, and all they know is their own trade, just like all other professional men. There are some geniuses among them, just as there are mental giants in any other field of endeavor.”

Ifs Knows Men Way Eye Science Brain Taken Groups Special Fields Genius Ordinary Scientist Trade Convinced Deception Giants Endeavor Wool

Author:Anthony Standen

“Hunter S. Thompson brings a lunatic genius to ordinary events, and I bring an ordinary sensibility to lunatic events.”

Events Genius Ordinary Sensibility Hunters Lunatic Hunter's Thompson

Author:P. J. O'Rourke

“Genius... is the capacity to see ten things where the ordinary man sees one.”

Men Literature Seeing Genius Ten Ordinary Capacity Ordinary Man Talent And Genius Artistic Genius

Author:Ezra Pound

“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.”

Men Needs Long Country Enough Shows Might America Turns Accepting Imagine Genius Citizens Ordinary Men And Women Capacity Betray Monument Ordinary Man

Author:Cornel West

“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.”

Source: THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA (Mystery & Horror Series): Gothic Classic Based on True Events at the Paris Opera

“The major work of the world is not done by geniuses. It is done by ordinary people, with balance in their lives, who have learned to work in an extraordinary manner.”

People World Done Work Genius Balance Majors Ordinary Extraordinary Ordinary People Emotional Balance

Author:Gordon B. Hinckley

“Remember William Blake who said: "Improvement makes straight, straight roads, but the crooked roads without improvement are roads of genius." The truth is, life itself, is always startling, strange, unexpected. But when the truth is told about it everybody knows at once that it is life itself and not made up. But in ordinary fiction, movies, etc, everything is smoothed out to seem plausible--villains made bad, heroes splendid, heroines glamorous, and so on, so that no one believes a word”

Knows Believe Made Said Seems Remember Fiction Strange Genius Hero Truth Is Ordinary Improvement Unexpected Etc Villain Splendid Glamorous Crooked Heroines Plausible Blake

Book:If You Want to Write

Source: If You Want to Write

“Unfortunately, the world has taken some of the greatest minds God has given us and locked them up in cages. Most very brilliant or creative people seem strange to ordinary people. Geniuses are almost always outcasts. The intelligent are bullied on the playground. They see the world differently and are shunned for it. They nearly all turn out to be lonely at the least, locked up at the worst. It's human nature to encourage the status quo and shun those who see life differently.”

“The real accomplishment of modern science and technology consists in taking ordinary men, informing them narrowly and deeply and then, through appropriate organization, arranging to have their knowledge combined with that of other specialized but equally ordinary men. This dispenses with the need for genius. The resulting performance, though less inspiring, is far more predictable.”

“Each individual is unique in ordinary life. The uniqueness becomes even more sharp and clear, crystal clear, when the person becomes enlightened - because only then his pure genius, his pure individuality, uncontaminated, unpolluted, is revealed.”

Persons Individual Clear Genius Pure Unique Ordinary Individuality Enlightened Uniqueness Crystals Ordinary Life

Author:Rajneesh

“That's what I am, Frank thought, an ordinary genius. He had unlocked the secret of radio. The sport of the ordinary! Brillliant me like Reed Seymour couldn't figure this out for the life of them! Reed was ashamed of radio. ...radio was a cinch if you kept reaching down and grabbing up handfuls of the ordinary.”

Ifs Art Sports Secret Figures Genius Ordinary Down And Radio Ashamed Reaching Frank Handful Reeds Grabbing

Author:Garrison Keillor

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