Genius, like humanity, rusts for want of use.
Nature is the master of talents; genius is the master of nature.
Gift, like genius, I often think only means an infinite capacity for taking pains.
At ingenium ingens
Inculto latet sub hoc corpora.
Yet a mighty genius lies hid under this rough
exterior.
Horace—Satires. Bk. I. 3. 33.
Genius is a promontory jutting out into the
infinite.
Victor Hugo—Wm. Shakespeare.
We declare to you that the earth has exhausted
its contingent of master-spirits. Now for decadence and general closing. We must make up
our minds to it. We shall have no more men of
genius.
Victor Hugo—Wm. Shakespeare. Bk. V. Ch.I.
The true Genius is a mind of large general
powers, accidentally determined to some particular direction. /
| author = Samuel Johnson
| work = Life of Cowley,
| topic = Genius
| page = 309
}}
{{Hoyt quote
| num =
| text = Entre esprit et talent il y a la proportion du toutasapartte.
Intelligence is to genius as the whole is in proportion to its part.
La Bruyère—The Characters or Manners of the Present Age. Opinions.
Many a genius has been slow of growth. Oaks
that flourish for a thousand years do not spring
up into beauty like a reed.
G. H. Lewes—Spanish Drama. Life of Lope
DeVega- Ch. II.
| topic = Genius
| page = 309
}}
{{Hoyt quote
| num =
| text = <poem>All the means of action—
The shapeless masses, the materials—
Lie everywhere about us. What we need
Is the celestial fire to change the flint
Into transparent crystal, bright and clear.
That fire is genius!
There is no work of genius which has not been
the delight of mankind, no word of genius to
which the human heart and soul have not,
sooner or later, responded.
Lowell—Among my Books. Rousseau and the
Sentimentalists.
Talent is that which is in a man's power! genius is that in whose power a man is.
Three-fifths of him genius and two-fifths sheer fudge.
Ubi jam valideis quassatum est viribus aevi
Corpus, et obtuseis ceciderunt viribus artus,
Claudicat ingenium delirat linguaque mensque.
When the body is assailed by the strong
force of time and the limbs weaken from exhausted force, genius breaks down, and mind
and speech fail.
Lucretius—De Rerum Natura. III. 452.
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{{Hoyt quote
| num = 15
| text = Talk not of genius baffled. Genius is master of man;
Genius does what it must, and talent does what it can.
Blot out my name, that the spirits of Shakespeare and Milton and Bums
Look not down on the praises of fools with a pity
my soul yet spurns.
Owen Meredith—Last Words. Pub. in
Cornhill Mag. Nov. 1860. P. 516.
Ingenio stat sine morte decus.
The honors of genius are eternal.
Properttob—EUgioe. III. 2. 24.
Ulud ingeniorum velut praecox genus, non
temere unquam pervenit ad frugem.
It seldom happens that a premature shoot
of genius ever arrives at maturity.
Qutntilian—De Institutione Oratorio. I. 3. 1.
Das Licht des Genie's bekam weniger
Fett, als das Licht des Lebens.
The lamp of genius burns quicker than the lamp of life.
Schiller—Fiesco. II. 17.
Nullum sseculum magnis ingeniis clausum est.
No age is shut against great genius.
Seneca—Epistoke Ad Lucilium. CH.
There is none but he
Whose being I do fear; and, under him,
My Genius is rebuk'd: as, it is said,
Mark Antony's was by Caesar.
Marmora Maeonii vincunt monumenta libelli
Vivitur ingenio; csetera mortis erunt.
The poets' scrolls will outlive the monuments of stone. Genius survives; all else is claimed by death.
