Top 1200 Insanity And Genius Quotes & Sayings - Page 4

In sheer genius Pascal ranks among the very greatest writers who have lived upon this earth. And his genius was not simply artistic; it displayed itself no less in his character and in the quality of his thought.

Well Socrates is 70 when he dies. He's been allowed to philosophise freely in the city for almost 50 years. He clearly was - genius is an overused word - but he clearly did have something of the genius about him.

A culture-bearing book, like a mule, bears the culture on its back. No one should sit down to write one deliberately. Culture-bearing books appear almost accidentally, like a sudden surge in the stock market. There are books of high quality that are a part of the culture, but that is not the same. They are a part of it. They aren't carrying it anywhere. They may talk about insanity sympathetically, for example, because that's the standard cultural attitude. But they don't carry any suggestion that insanity might be something other than sickness or degeneracy.

No one suffers so much as he [the genius] with the people, and, therefore, for the people, with whom he lives. For, in a certain sense, it is certainly only "by suffering" that a man knows. If compassion is not itself clear, abstractly conceivable or visibly symbolic knowledge, it is, at any rate, the strongest impulse for the acquisition of knowledge. It is only by suffering that the genius understands men. And the genius suffers most because he suffers with and in each and all; but he suffers most through his understanding. . . .

Heaven knows insanity was disreputable enough, long ago; but now that the lawyers have got to cutting every gallows rope and picking every prison lock with it, it is become a sneaking villainy that ought to hang and keep on hanging its sudden possessors until evil-doers should conclude that the safest plan was to never claim to have it until they came by it legitimately. The very calibre of the people the lawyers most frequently try to save by the insanity subterfuge ought to laugh the plea out of the courts, one would think.

The only difference between a genius and one of common capacity is that the former anticipates and explores what the latter accidentally hits upon; but even the man of genius himself more frequently employs the advantages that chance presents to him.

"Genius is just enduring patience," said Buffon. This is far from complete. Genius is impatience in ideas and patience with the facts: a lively imagination and a calm judgment, rather like a liquid boiling in a cup that remains cold.

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

[Addressed to Berlusconi who wanted to impose himself on the editorial style of "Il Giornale"] In the art of entrepeneurship, you are certainly a genius, and I an asshole. But in the art of argument the genius is me, and you the asshole.

We reserve the term 'genius' for people who are creative, who are innovators, who think in ways that are entirely new. In the Middle Ages, the term 'genius' was reserved for people with the best memories. That is telling.

The real problem is that through our scientific genius we’ve made of the world a neighborhood, but through our moral and spiritual genius we’ve failed to make of it a brotherhood.

Some were brilliant bordering on genius. Others, genius bordering on madness

The man who puts life into an idea is acclaimed a genius, because he does the right thing at the right time. Therein lies the difference between the genius and a commonplace man.

The enthusiast always finds the master, the masters, whom he seeks. Always genius seeks genius, desires nothing so much as to be a pupil and to find those who can lend it aid to perfect itself.

'Insanity... I like it."

If you set the attractiveness bar really low, people have to compliment you on your looks when they meet you in person. I'm pretty much a genius. I'm actually applying to work at the Genius Bar based on this trick.

Genius is often called crazy, but crazy is never called genius. So you just have to put out the work and let the chips fall where they may.

For ages past the Genius of Literature and the Genius of Art have walked together hand in hand. For the Goddess of letters is blind, and only she of Art can lend her sight.

Scholesy was a genius, absolute genius. He was a center-forward's dream, you could make a run and he'd put the ball perfectly in your path. Any footballer you ask will always tell you that Scholesy was one of the best players they've ever played with.

Architecture is not created by individuals. The genius sketch ... is a myth. Architecture is made by a team of committed people who work together, and in fact, success usually has more to do with dumb determination than with genius.

Talent wears well, genius wears itself out; talent drives a snug brougham in fact; genius, a sun-chariot in fancy.

Insanity has excuses; wickedness has not.

Preparation is - if not the key to genius - then at least the key to sounding like a genius.

Men of humor are always in some degree men of genius; wits are rarely so, although a man of genius may, amongst other gifts, possess wit, as Shakespeare.

Talent is full of thoughts, Genius is thought. Talent is a cistern, Genius a fountain.

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.

I think I'm a vocal genius, not a musical genius. I like background vocals. I consider myself a voice, not a singer. A voice is a sound, and singing is what you do with that sound.

Comedy, I'm still in awe of. I think you need a comic genius somewhere in the mix. It's got to be the actor or someone. But the 'comic genius' actors are the darkest people on the planet - and that kind of scares me!

From the standpoint of education, genius means essentially 'giving birth to the joy in learning.' I'd like to suggest that this is the central task of all educators. It is the genius of the student that is the driving force behind all learning. Before educators take on any of the other important issues in learning, they must first have a thorough understanding of what lies at the core of each student's intrinsic motivation to learn, and that motivation originates in each student's genius.

Montesquieu had the style of a genius; Buffon, the genius of style.

The genius is a genius by the first look he casts on any object. Is his eye creative? Does he not rest in angles and colors, but beholds the design,--he will presently undervalue the actual object.

I've concluded that genius is as common as dirt. We suppress genius because we haven't yet figured out how to manage a population of educated men and women. The solution, I think, is simple and glorious. Let them manage themselves.

I'm not exactly a maths genius - I'm really good at maths, maths was my favorite subject in school, but I wasn't a genius.

You see the genius that Whitney Houston has as an interpreter of material, and you realize why genius can be applied to only a few interpretive performers. She finds meaning and depth and soulfulness in a song that often the writer and composer never really knew was there.

True genius does not fulfill expectations; true genius shatters it.

When you're in a play, 50 percent is the genius of the actor, 50 percent is the genius of the author. When a mime is not perfect, you see nothing.

You can perfect genius because genius is not perfection. On his level and his practice and his methodology, it's almost inhuman. So, that's been a fantastic arc to play, and boy does it go somewhere in this series.

I consider myself a genius because, when you talk about anything and everything, you a genius to me. It's just about makin' it fire on top o' more fire.

Insanity is catching.

Obsessive devotion to creating can spark that which is called 'genius.' Smarter or more gifted? The 'madness' is the insatiable drive to discover, achieve and create. Monomania can develop into 'genius,' as the individual delves deeper into the process leaving normal parameters behind.

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.

Religion is collective insanity.

Genius in general is poetic. Where genius has been active it has been poetically active. The truly moral person is a poet.

Genius is a potential that lives within you and every other human being. You have many moments of genius in your lifetime. These are the times when you have a uniquely brilliant idea and implement it even if only you are aware of how fantastic it is.

Men of genius supply the substance of history, while the mass of men are but the critical filter, the limiting, slackening, passive force needed for the modification of ideas supplied by genius.

In Goodfellas they have this one scene where the camera goes down some steps and walks through a kitchen into a restaurant and the critics were all over this as evidence of the genius of Scorsese and Scorsese is a genius.

The artist does not exist except as a personification, a figure of speech that represents the sum total of art itself. It is painting that is the genius of the painter, poetry of the poet, and a person is a creative artist to the extent that he participates in that genius.

Isadore [Duncan], who had an un-American genius for art, for organizing love, maternity, politics and pedagogy on a great personal scale, had also an un-American genius for grandeur.

Eccentricity is not, as some would believe, a form of madness. It is often a kind of innocent pride, and the man of genius and the aristocrat are frequently regarded as eccentrics because genius and aristocrat are entirely unafraid of and uninfluenced by the opinions and vagaries of the crowd.

It is true there is nothing displays a genius, I mean a quickness of genius, more than a dispute; as two diamonds, encountering, contribute to each other's luster. But perhaps the odds is much against the man of taste in this particular.

Originality and creativity are nothing but the result of the wise management of combinations. The creative genius combines more rapidly, and with a greater critical sense of what gets tossed out and what gets saved, the same material that the failed genius has to work with.

I've never met a genius. A genius to me is someone who does well at something he hates. Anybody can do well at something he loves - it's just a question of finding the subject.

Some very dull and sad people have genius though the world may not count it as such; a genius for love, or for patience, or for prayer, maybe. We know the divine spark is here and there in the world: who shall say under what manifestations, or humble disguise!

I think Harold Ramis is a genius beyond genius, and he's the nicest guy, funniest guy, sweetest guy ever. So I don't know if it applies to everybody, but maybe it has to do with your childhood.

No, I don't admire the genius. But I admire and love the result of the genius's activity in the world, of which the great man is only the poor necessary tool, only, so to speak, the paltry awl to bore with.

High original genius is always ridiculed on its first appearance; most of all by those who have won themselves the highest reputation in working on the established lines. Genius only commands recognition when it has created the taste which is to appreciate it.

The mathematician's best work is art, a high perfect art, as daring as the most secret dreams of imagination, clear and limpid. Mathematical genius and artistic genius touch one another.

We have to have genius creative thoughts precisely four times a year and on exact dates. I actually write them on my calendar. I write, 'Friday, Nov. 8. Three o'clock. Have a genius creative idea.'

I'm a huge Muppets fan. Gigantic. I think they're genius. I think they're some of the best work out there and completely underrated, just because of how genius they are. I love that kind of humor. It's so innocent but brilliant.

Insanity is contagious.