The Meaning of Genius

“When a great genius appears in the world you may know him by this sign; that the dunces are all in confederacy against him."

—Jonathan Swift

"These are times in which a genius would wish to live. It is not in the still calm of life, or in the repose of a pacific station, that great characters are formed. The habits of a vigorous mind are formed in contending with difficulties. Great necessities call out great virtues."

—Abigail Adams

“Improvement makes straight roads, but the crooked roads, without Improvement, are roads of Genius.”

—William Blake

“The true genius shudders at incompleteness—imperfection—and usually prefers silence to saying the something which is not everything that should be said.”

—Edgar Allan Poe

“Poetry destroyed? Genius banished? No! Mediocrity, no: do not let envy prompt you to the thought. No; they not only live, but reign, and redeem..."

—Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

"To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men, — that is genius."

—Ralph Waldo Emerson

"The secret of genius is to suffer no fiction to exist for us; to realize all that we know..."

—Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Beauty is a form of Genius—is higher, indeed, than Genius, as it needs no explanation."

—Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

“There's a fine line between genius and insanity.”

—Oscar Levant

"Genius is more often found in a cracked pot than in a whole one."

—E. B. White

"The great moral teachers of humanity were, in a way, artistic geniuses in the art of living."

—Albert Einstein

"We need genius, however envious or uncomfortable it makes many among us. Our desire for the transcendental and extraordinary seems part of our common heritage, and abandons us slowly and never completely."

—Harold Bloom

"We all have genius-level talent, we just have to find out what [we're] genius at and apply ourselves in a way that supports that genius. First recognize that genius, then believe in it. You avoid all the outside noise. People put their fears and their insecurities on you so you can't reach your full potential. Don't let all the outside things get in the way."

—Jay Z

"Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see."

—Arthur Schopenhauer