[On Chopin’s Preludes:]”His genius was filled with the mysterious sounds of nature, but transformed into sublime equivalents in musical thought, and not through slavish imitation of the actual external sounds. His composition of that night...

Love is a combination of understanding and misunderstanding. I’m understanding of your flaws, and I’m misunderstanding why you don’t try to be perfect, like I am.

Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius — and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction.

Genius is the talent for seeing things straight.

Like almost all of Beefheart’s recorded work, it was not even “ahead” of its time in 1969. Then and now, it stands outside time, trends, fads, hypes, the rise and fall of whole genres eclectic...

First and last, what is demanded of genius is love of truth.

I’ll become exactly the tool you want me to be, said Ender silently, but at least I wont be fooled into it. I’ll do it because I choose to, not because you tricked me, you...

Freud was a genius; geniuses are bright but not necessarily right. What they do do, right or wrong, is to provide images that guide, or compel, the lives of the rest of us. If we...

Each age selects its own geniuses from the past to suit its own needs. It’s always been that way.

I was in Milan, and somebody gave me a Trussardi diary, and I thought ‘Genius.’ Inside I put the Polaroids, how much film I shot, who I shot with. This way, for billing later on,...

Genius is a sovereign power; it forms schools; it lays hold on the spirits of men, with irresistible might; and it exercises an immeasurable influence on the whole condition of human life. This sovereignty of...

There was never a great genius without a touch of madness.

I must know, he thinks. It must be clear to me. There is a world which is closed to him, a world of shadings, gradations, nuances, and subtleties. He is a genius and yet he...

Jimi’s fan base is one thing only it’s about his genius as guitarist, musician and performer. All the work needed to solidify the fan base was accomplished in 1970 when he was alive, creating, and...

In the judgment of the most competent living mathematicians, Fraulein Noether was the most significant mathematical genius thus far produced since the higher education of women began.

You may try but you can never imagine what it is to have a man’s form of genius in you, and to suffer the slavery of being a girl.

Susceptibility to the highest forces is the highest genius.

I say, `Woe to them that have a nose, a real nose,and come to look round the torture-chamber! Aha, aha, aha!

Great minds that are healthy are never considered geniuses, while this sublime qualification is lavished on brains that are often inferior but are slightly touched by madness.

Genius is the seed slowly germinating in the ground.

We’re not hunter-gatherers anymore. We’re all living like patients in the intensive care unit of a hospital. What keeps us alive isn’t bravery, or athleticism, or any of those other skills that were valuable in...

Thousands of geniuses live and die undiscovered — either by themselves or by others. But for the Civil War, Lincoln and Grant and Sherman and Sheridan would not have been discovered, nor have risen into...

In my dreams,” said Ender, “I’m never sure whether I’m really me.

The height of ability consists in a thorough knowledge of the real value of things, and of the genius of the age in which we live.

I wonder if every genius has a touch of madness, does everyone that’s normal have a touch or retardation?

Despite of the growing industry in technology and the sophistication of cellular phones to tabs and touch screens, the level of human brain from the genius to dumb can never be compared to computers”.

Learning is the ally, not the adversary of genius . . . he who reads in a proper spirit, can scarcely read too much.

Perhaps then one reason why we have no great poet, novelist or critic writing today is that we refuse to allow words their liberty. We pin them down to one meaning, their useful meaning: the...

I believe in Spinoza’s God who reveals himself in the harmony of all that exists, not in a God who concerns himself with the fate and the doings of mankind.

We begin to become divine by learning to love like the divine loves. And how does the divine love? It loves everyone-including you-freely and without conditions.

Those whom nature destined to make her disciples have no need of teachers. Bacon, Descartes, Newton — these tutors of the human race had no need of tutors themselves, and what guides could have led...

There is no off position on the genius button.

If it’s true what is said, that only the wise discover the wise, then it must also be true that the lone wolf symbolizes either the biggest fool on the planet or the biggest Einstein...

An exceedingly confident student would in theory make a terrible student. Why would he take school seriously when he feels that he can outwit his teachers?

Cuvier had even in his address & manner the character of a superior Man, much general power & eloquence in conversation & great variety of information on scientific as well as popular subjects. I should...

You’re a Genius all the time

A genius knows how to make himself easily understood without being obvious about it.

The genius of Man in our time has gone into jet-propulsion, atom-splitting, penicillin-curing, etc. There is none over for works of imagination; of spiritual insight or mystical enlightenment. I asked for bread and was given...

Innocence in genius, and candor in power, are both noble qualities.

Yes, I think I am a genius, but not a rebel.

[…] with the protecting sky in all its splendour and the golden sun blazing forth against a backdrop of crystalline blue, to use the inspired words of a television reporter[…].

I didn’t know how you’d get us out of that last one. But you did. You were good.

Let us not compare the genius with the clever; ocean with the lake!

Do we take less pride in the possession of our home because its walls were built by some unknown carpenter, its tapestries woven by some unknown weaver on a far Oriental shore, in some antique...

We always look for operators with a combination of guts, passion and genius.

Clive Barker is just genius, and he’s incredibly gifted in so many different ways. He can write and direct and paint and do all these different things, and he can do them all extremely well.

With genius, as with beauty — all, well almost all, is forgiven.

I place my fingers upon these keys typing 2,000 dreams per minute and naked of spirit dance forth my cosmic vortex upon this crucifix called language.

Any self-realized being has access to the dynamic genius which nature gives all beings.

there is enough treachery, hatred violence absurdity in the averagehuman being to supply any given army on any given dayand the best at murder are those who preach against itand the best at hate are...