A Quote by Joseph Chenier

Good sense is at the bottom of everything: virtue, genius, wit, talent and taste.

Joseph Chenier

Quote Topics

Bottom Everything Genius Good Good Sense Sense Talent Taste Virtue Wit

Quote Author

Joseph Chenier
French - Poet
February 11, 1764 - January 10, 1811

Genius creates, and taste preserves. Taste is the good sense of genius; without taste, genius is only sublime folly.

Alexander Pope

Talent warms-up the given (as they say in cookery) and makes it apparent; genius brings something new. But our time lets talent pass for genius. They want to abolish the genius, deify the genius, and let talent forge ahead.

Soren Kierkegaard

Good taste cannot supply the place of genius in literature, for the best proof of taste, when there is no genius, would be, not to write at all.

Madame de Stael

Genius is talent provided with ideals. Genius starves while talent wears purple and fine linen. The man of genius of today will infifty years' time be in most cases no more than a man of talent.

W. Somerset Maugham

The Great slight the men of wit, who have nothing but wit; the men of wit despise the Great, who have nothing but greatness; the good man pities them both, if with greatness or wit they have not virtue.

Jean de la Bruyere

The rich can buy everything but health, virtue, friendship, wit, good looks, love, pride, intelligence, grace, and, if you need it, happiness.

Edward Abbey

Virtue is the master of talent, talent is the servant of virtue. Talent without virtue is like a house where there is no master and their servant manages its affairs. How can there be no mischief?

Zicheng Hong

I am a good Protestant, and in the full sense of the term, for from the bottom of my soul, I protest against everything that is said, and everything that is done.

Pierre Bayle

Manner is all in all, whate'er is writ,The substitute for genius, sense, and wit.

William Cowper

There seems almost a general wish of descrying the capacity and undervaluing the labour of the novelist, and of slighting the performances which have only genius, wit, and taste to recommend them.

Jane Austen

Good sense, good health, good conscience, and good fame,--all these belong to virtue, and all prove that virtue has a title to your love.

William Cowper

Virtue and taste are nearly the same, for virtue is little more than active taste, and the most delicate affections of each combine in real love.

Ann Radcliffe

Could we teach taste or genius by rules, they would be no longer taste and genius.

Joshua Reynolds

A small degree of wit, accompanied by good sense, is less tiresome in the long run than a great amount of wit without it.

Francois de La Rochefoucauld

A good taste in art feels the presence or the absence of merit; a just taste discriminates the degree--the poco piu and the poco meno. A good taste rejects faults; a just taste selects excellences. A good taste is often unconscious; a just taste is always conscious. A good taste may be lowered or spoilt; a just taste can only go on refining more and more.