Genius

We should be disposed to define genius as the capacity of surviving failure; in self-control, at all events, it finds a powerful auxiliary and agent.
~ William Henry ("W.H.") Davenport Adams, The Secret of Success; or, How to Get on in the World (1879). Chapter V. Business Habits

Execution becomes content in a work of genius.
~ Bill Bernbach, Bill Bernbach said ... (1989).

Ages are All Equal.
But Genius is Always Above The Age.
~ William Blake, in The Life of William Blake (1863). Notes on Reynolds' Discourses (written c. 1798-1808; aka Annotations to The Works of Sir Joshua Reynolds).

Execution is the Chariot of Genius.
~ William Blake, in The Life of William Blake (1863). Notes on Reynolds' Discourses (written c. 1798-1808; aka Annotations to The Works of Sir Joshua Reynolds).

Improvement makes straight roads; but the crooked roads without improvements are roads of genius.
~ William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790-93). Proverbs of Hell

Genius, therefore, with all its pride in its own strength, is but a dependent quality, and cannot put forth its whole powers nor claim all its honors without an amount of aid from the talents and labors of others which it is difficult to calculate.
~ William Cullen Bryant, in Lectures on Poetry before the New York Athenaeum (April 1825; published in 1884). Lecture IV. On Originality and Imitation

It is not the great, scholarly mind that does the great work, it is the man who knows a few things and loves them. A genius is just another way of defining a great enthusiast.
~ Willa Sibert Cather, in Nebraska State Journal (5 November 1893). One Way of Putting It

It is power of thought and utterance which immortalizes the products of genius.
~ William Ellery Channing (D.D.), in the Christian Examiner (1827-28). Remarks on The Life and Character of Napoleon Bonaparte, Part II

Genius has no sex, -- I defy anyone to distinguish between two canvasses, one of which shall be the production of a woman, and the other of a man.
~ William Merritt Chase

When human power becomes so great and original that we can account for it only as a kind of divine imagination, we call it genius.
~ William Crashaw

[O]riginal Poetic Genius will in general be displayed in its utmost vigour in the early and uncultivated periods of Society, which are peculiarly favorable to it; and that it will seldom appear in a very high degree in cultivated life.
~ William Duff, Essay on Original Genius (1767).

To explore unbeaten tracks, and make new discoveries in the regions of Science; to invent the designs, and perfect the productions of Art, is the province of Genius alone.
~ William Duff, Essay on Original Genius (1767).

[S]cience can get along with talent, but art requires genius.
~ William James "Will" Durant, The Story of Philosophy: the Lives and Opinions of the Greater Philosophers (1926).

Geniuses used to be rare. Today, thanks to popular interpretation of test scores, every elementary or secondary school has its quota.
~ John William Gardner, Excellence: Can We Be Equal and Excellent Too? (1961).

Dandyism is ... a variety of genius.
~ William Hazlitt, from The Spirit of the Age (1825). Lord Byron

Genius, like humanity, rusts for want of use.
~ William Hazlitt, from The Plain Speaker (1826). On Application to Study

Men of genius do not excel in any profession because they labor in it, but they labor in it, because they excel.
~ William Hazlitt, Characteristics: in the Manner of Rochefoucault's Maxims (1823).

The definition of genius is that it acts unconsciously; and those who have produced immortal works, have done so without knowing how or why. The greatest power operates unseen ...
~ William Hazlitt, from The Plain Speaker (1826). Whether Genius is Conscious of its own Power

The path of genius is free, and its own.
~ William Hazlitt, Characteristics: in the Manner of Rochefoucault's Maxims (1823).

I know of no such thing as genius, genius is nothing but labour and diligence.
~ William Hogarth, quoted in Biographiana, Volume 2 (1799).

A genius ... is the man in whom you are least likely to find the power of attending to anything insipid or distasteful in itself. He breaks his engagements, leaves his letters unanswered, neglects his family duties incorrigibly, because be is powerless to turn his attention down and back from those more interesting trains of imagery with which his genius constantly occupies his mind.
~ William James, Talks to Teachers on Psychology: and to Students on Some of Life's Ideals (March 1899). XI. Attention

Genius, in truth, means little more than the faculty of perceiving in an unhabitual way.
~ William James, The Principles of Psychology (1890).

[G]enius is nothing but a power of sustained attention.
~ William James, Talks to Teachers on Psychology: and to Students on Some of Life's Ideals (March 1899). XI. Attention

Genius is the capacity for seeing relationships where lesser men see none.
~ William James

Geniuses are commonly believed to excel other men in their power of sustained attention. ... But it is their genius making them attentive, not their attention making geniuses of them.
~ William James, A Text-Book of Psychology (1892).

Geniuses are ferments; and when they come together as they have done in certain lands at certain times, the whole population seems to share in the higher energy which they awaken.
~ William James, in Memories and Studies (1911). Stanford's Ideal Destiny (Address at Stanford University on Founder's Day; 1906)

The essence of genius is to know what to overlook.
~ William James, The Principles of Psychology (1890).

Genius would soon starve and pine away, if not ceaselessly fed by the memory.
~ William Mathews, from The Great Conversers, And Other Essays (1874). IV. Originality in Literature

Genius is talent provided with ideals. Genius starves while talent wears purple and fine linen. The man of genius of today will in fifty years' time be in most cases no more than a man of talent.
~ W. Somerset Maugham, from A Writer's Notebook (1949).

It is always well to get near to men of genius. The very air in which you live is an inspiration.
~ William Henry Moody, Interview in Boston Globe (11 November 1906).

A man of genius is unbearable, unless he possess at least two things besides: gratitude and purity.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil (1885-86).

Genius depends on dry air, on clear skies -- that is, on rapid metabolism, on the possibility of drawing again and again on great, even tremendous quantities of strength.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Ecce Homo (1888).

Artistic genius is an expansion of monkey imitativeness.
~ W. (William) Winwood Reade, The Martyrdom of Man (1872). Chapter III: Liberty

Genius is play, and man's capacity for achieving genius is infinite, and many may achieve genius only through play.
~ William Saroyan, Three Times Three (1936).

A man of remarkable genius may afford to pass by a piece of wit, if it happen to border on abuse. A little genius is obliged to catch at every witticism indiscriminately.
~ William Shenstone, in Works in Verse and Prose, Vol. II (1764). Essays on Men, Manners, and Things. On Politics

Genius is Discovery!
~ William Gilmore Simms, Egeria: Or, Voices of Thought and Counsel for the Woods and Wayside (1853).

A genius can't be forc'd; nor can
You make an ape an alderman.
~ William Somervile, from Occasional Poems, Translations, Fables, Tales, Etc. (1727). Fable XIV. The Fortune-Hunter, Canto I

Genius is never understood in its own time.
~ Bill Watterson, Calvin and Hobbes

An audience is never wrong. An individual member of it may be an imbecile, but a thousand imbeciles together in the dark -- that is critical genius.
~ Billy Wilder, in BBC2 TV's Arena profile (24 January 1992).

Talent is a flame. Genius is a fire.
~ Bern Williams

Attention makes the genius; all learning, fancy, and science depend upon it.
~ Robert Eldridge Aris (R.A.) Willmott, Pleasures, Objects, And Advantages Of Literature (1851). XVIII. Diligence the Handmaid of Taste

Genius finds its own road, and carries its own lamp.
~ Robert Eldridge Aris (R.A.) Willmott, Pleasures, Objects, And Advantages Of Literature (1851). VI. Objects and Limitations of this Discourse

Real genius of moral insight is a motor which will start any engine.
~ Edmund Wilson, from The Triple Thinkers (1938). Marxism and Literature

Genius is the summed production of the many with the names of the few attached for easy recall.
~ Edward Osborne (E.O.) Wilson, The Diversity of Life (1992). Chapter One. Storm over the Amazon

Men do not make their homes unhappy because they have genius, but because they have not enough genius: a mind and sentiments of a higher order would render them capable of seeing and feeling all the beauty of the domestic ties.
~ William Wordsworth