This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
An idiot repeats his mistakes. A smart man learns from his mistakes. But a genius learns from the mistakes of others.
Jonathan Swift, pen names, M.B. Drapier, Lemuel Gulliver, Isaac Bickerstaff
When a true genius appears in the world you may know him by this sign: that all the dunces are in confederacy against him.
Virtue is as little to be acquired by learning as genius; nay, the idea is barren, and is only to be employed as an instrument, in the same way as genius in respect to art. It would be as foolish to expect that our moral and ethical systems would turn out virtuous, noble, and holy beings, as that our aesthetic systems would produce poets, painters and musicians.
Aesthetic | Art | Genius | Learning | Little | Respect | Virtue | Virtue | Respect |
Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see.
Genius |
Compared with the short span of time they live, men of great intellect are like huge buildings, standing on a small plot of ground. The size of the building cannot be seen by anyone, just in front of it; nor, for an analogous reason, can the greatness of a genius be estimated while he lives. but when a century has passed, the world recognizes it and wishes him back again.
Genius | Greatness | Men | Reason | Size | Time | Wishes | World | Intellect |
Compared with the short span of time they live, men of great intellect are like huge buildings, standing on a small plot of ground. The size of the building cannot be seen by anyone, just in front of it; nor, for an analogous reason, can the greatness of a genius be estimated while he lives. But when a century has passed, the world recognizes it and wishes him back again.
Genius | Greatness | Men | Reason | Size | Time | Wishes | World | Intellect |
Arnold J. Toynbee, fully Arnold Joseph Toynbee
The emergence of a superman or a great mystic or a genius or a superior personality inevitably precipitates a social conflict. The conflict will be more or less acute, according to the degree in which the creative individual happens to rise above the average level of his former kin and kind. But some conflict is inevitable, since the social equilibrium which the genius has upset by the mere fact of his personal emergence has eventually to be restored either by his social triumph or by his social defeat.
Defeat | Genius | Individual | Inevitable | Personality | Will |
An idiot repeats his mistakes. A smart man learns from his mistakes. But a genius learns from the mistakes of others.
Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield
Mediocrity can talk; but it is for genius to observe.
Genius | Mediocrity |
Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield
Every production of genius must be the production of enthusiasm.
Enthusiasm | Genius |
To sentence a man of true genius to the drudgery of a school is put a racehorse in a mill.
To be a genius is to achieve complete possession of one's own experience, body, rhythm, and memories.
Body | Experience | Genius |
Moderation is the inseparable companion of wisdom, but with it genius has not even a nodding acquaintance.
Acquaintance | Genius | Moderation | Wisdom |
Works of true merit are seldom very popular in their own day; for knowledge is on the march and men of genius are the videttes that are far in advance of their comrades. They are not with them, but before them; not in the camp, but beyond it.
Tacitus, fully Publius (or Gaius) Cornelius Tacitus NULL
The persecution of genius fosters its influence.