Genius Quotes

Greatness is the reward for genius... only a few can be great, the rest are plain good.

James Cameron thinks we can do anything. He'll let you try anything. There are very few geniuses in the world, let alone in our business, and he's certainly one of them.

As an actor, I really like Philip Seymour Hoffman. I think he's a genius.

Political genius consists in identifying oneself with a principle.

The individuals who seem to us most outstanding, who are honored with the name of genius, are those who have proposed to enact the fate of all humanity in their personal existences.

Why shouldn't I be introspective? We dont' make sense." "Neither do Chocolate and Peanut Butter, but it somehow works." He says "Somehow the mixture of two things is genius.

There are few words in the music business or in art that I'll say people or some writers are overgenerous with words like 'legend' or 'genius', 'he's a pioneer' and all of that.

Plague might be a social incompetent, but he was unquestionably a genius.

With some songs, I have written narratives or I've tried to carry it through, but generally the things that were more genius, as far as I was concerned, were not that.

The truth is that our race survived ignorance; it is our scientific genius that will do us in.

Genius attracts more hate than love and more disrespect than respect; at least for the first few hundred years.

Talent is the ability to say things well, but genius is the ability to, well, say things.

A writer writes with his genius; an artist paints with hers; everyone who creates operates from this sacramental center.

Talent imitates, but genius steals.

I've always said that the word 'genius,' especially in Hollywood, is way overused.

... men of highest genius have been too frequently of extremely shaky morals.

That was the very centre of his genius - he invented things that anyone could have thought of, and men who can invent things that anyone could have thought of are very rare men.

Genius is the father of a heavenly line, but the mortal mother, that is industry.

As is the inventor of murder, and the father of art, Cain must have been a man of first-rate genius.

My father believed, like Pericles, that a mans genius could be easily judged by the number of unenlightened fools set in phalanx against his ideas.

Character shows itself apart from genius as a special thing. The first point of measurement of any man is that of quality.

People do not respect music anymore... They go by what's hot... If you're hot, you deserve 4 or 5 Grammys... Madonna is a genius and she only has 2 or 3 Grammys... What is that about?

We have to have genius creative thoughts precisely four times a year and on exact dates. I actually write them on my calendar. I write, 'Friday, Nov. 8. Three o'clock. Have a genius creative idea.'

You don't have to be a genius to recognize one. If you did, Einstein would never have gotten invited to the White House.

Passion is the genius of genius.

It's a great loss.[Carrie Fisher] was a comic genius, as far as I'm concerned.

Martin Lawrence is one of my comedic heroes, and he's a genius.

Talent, and genius as well, is like a grain of pearl sand shifting about in the creative mind. A valued tormentor.

Norman Mailer thinks William Burroughs is a genius, which I think is ludicrous beyond words. I don't think William Burroughs has an ounce of talent.

Appreciation, whether of nature, or books, or art, or men, depends very much on temperament. What is beauty or genius or greatness to one, is far from being so to another.

Even a genius has his questions.

It is often said that in Ireland there is an excess of genius unsustained by talent; but there is talent in the tongues.

Homer is one of the men of genius who solve that fine problem of art - the finest of all, perhaps - truly to depict humanity by the enlargement of man: that is, to generate the real in the ideal.

Let us leave to the brain what belongs to it, and agree that the work of the men of genius is of the superhuman, the offspring of man.

The earlier works of a man of genius are always preferred to the newer ones, in order to prove that he is going down instead of up.

There is suffering in the light; in excess it burns. Flame is hostile to the wing. To burn and yet to fly, this is the miracle of genius.

The greatest products of architecture are less the works of individuals than of society; rather the offspring of a nation's effort, than the inspired flash of a man of genius.

Genius is talent provided with ideals. Genius starves while talent wears purple and fine linen. The man of genius of today will infifty years' time be in most cases no more than a man of talent.

Genius is Omniscience flowing into man.

Was he smart? No, not exceptionally. Instead, he was a genius.

The host of men who stand between a great thinker and the average man are not automatic transmitters. They work on the ideas; perhaps that is why a genius usually hates his disciples.

Genius sees the dynamic purpose first, find reasons afterward.

Run against the grain of a nation's genius and see where you get with your laws.

Here lay the political genius of Franklin Roosevelt: that in his own time he knew what were the questions that had to be answered, even though he himself did not always find the full answer.

A critic is never too severe when he only detects the faults of an author. But he is worse than too severe when, in consequence of this detection, be presumes to place himself on a level with genius.

Where power is absent we may find the robe of genius, but we miss the throne.

What an ornament and safeguard is humor! Far better than wit for a poet and writer. It is a genius itself, and so defends from the insanities.

The Painter who seeks popularity in Art closes the door upon his own genius.

See the genius in everyone you encounter. Just as the mountain cannot crack a nut though it can carry a forest on its back, so too does every living creature have its own perfection built into it.

Bruce was a genius, conveniently born on Christmas Eve with, according to my mother, Messiah potential.