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.
Genius is neither learned nor acquired. It is knowing without experience. It is risking without fear of failure. It is perception without touch. It is understanding without research. It is certainty without proof. It is ability without practice. It is invention without limitations. It is imagination without boundaries. It is creativity without constraints. It is...extraordinary intelligence!
The fool is often oblivious of his own gaucherie.
Controlled hysteria is what's required. To exist constantly in a state of controlled hysteria. It's agony. But everyone has agony. The difference is that I try to take my agony home and teach it to sing.
Genius creates, and taste preserves. Taste is the good sense of genius; without taste, genius is only sublime folly.
Love is the Water of Life Everything other than love for the most beautiful God is agony of the spirit, though it be sugar- eating. What is agony of the spirit? To advance toward death without seizing hold of the Water of Life.
A worker without genius is better than a genius who won't work.
Talent without genius isn't much, but genius without talent is nothing whatsoever.
The genius of a good leader is to leave behind him a situation which common sense, without the grace of genius, can deal with successfully.
When a book comes out I wonder if one person will buy it. It's agony. Of course it's stupid, but it's agony.
We do have choice, but not without some agony.
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.
Religion itself is without genius. There is no religious genius and no one would be permitted to distinguish between the talented and the untalented in religion.
The difference between talent and genius is in the direction of the current: in genius, it is from within outward; in talent from without inward.
When I am halfway there with a painting, it can occasionally be thrilling... But it happens very rarely; usually it's agony... I go to great pains to mask the agony. But the struggle is there. It's the invisible enemy.
Genius is, to be sure, not a matter of arbitrariness, but rather of freedom, just as wit, love, and faith, which once shall become arts and disciplines. We should demand genius from everybody, without, however, expecting it.