A Quote by Honore de Balzac

Inspiration is the opportunity of genius.

Honore de Balzac

Quote Topics

Genius Inspiration Opportunity

Quote Author

Honore de Balzac
French - Novelist
May 20, 1799 - August 18, 1850

The art of land warfare is an art of genius, of inspiration. On the sea nothing is genius or inspiration; everything is positive or empiric.

Napoleon Bonaparte

Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration. As a result, a genius is often a talented person who has simply done all of his homework.

Thomas A. Edison

Universality is the distinguishing mark of genius. There is no such thing as a special genius, a genius for mathematics, or for music, or even for chess, but only a universal genius. The genius is a man who knows everything without having learned it.

Otto Weininger

Inspiration and genius -one and the same.

Victor Hugo

Genius is not inspired. Inspiration is perspiration.

Thomas A. Edison

Genius is 99% perspiration and 1% inspiration.

Thomas A. Edison

For me genius is '1% inspiration and 99% procrastination.'

Richard Herring

He is gifted with genius who knoweth much by natural inspiration.

Pindar

Genius defined: of inspiration 1% percent, of perspiration, 99%.

Thomas A. Edison

The professional dedicates himself to mastering technique not because he believes technique is a substitute for inspiration but because he wants to be in possession of the full arsenal of skills when inspiration does come. The professional is sly. He knows that by toiling beside the front door of technique, he leaves room for genius to enter by the back.

Steven Pressfield

Genius is its own reward; for the best that one is, one must necessarily be for oneself. . . . Further, genius consists in the working of the free intellect., and as a consequence the productions of genius serve no useful purpose. The work of genius may be music, philosophy, painting, or poetry; it is nothing for use or profit. To be useless and unprofitable is one of the characteristics of genius; it is their patent of nobility.

Arthur Schopenhauer

That adage about genius being 5 percent inspiration and 95 perspiration - it's true.

Yanni

The one mistake which is committed habitually by people who have the gift of half-genius, is waiting for inspiration.

Philip Gilbert Hamerton

The lack of opportunity is ever the excuse of a weak, vacillating mind. Opportunities! Every life is full of them. Every newspaper article is an opportunity. Every client is an opportunity. Every sermon is an opportunity. Every business transaction is an opportunity, an opportunity to be polite, an opportunity to be manly, an opportunity to be honest, an opportunity to make friends.