This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
The secret of genius is… first, last, midst, and without end, to honor every truth by use.
Robert Ingersoll, fully Robert Green "Bob" Ingersoll
In the republic of mediocrity genius is dangerous.
Genius | Mediocrity |
Ruth Benedict, born Ruth Fulton
The highest endowments do not create - they only discover. All transcendent genius has the power to make us know this as utter truth. Shakespeare, Bethoveen - it is inconceivable that they have fashioned the works of their lives; they only saw and heard the universe that is opaque and dumb to us.
Robert Ingersoll, fully Robert Green "Bob" Ingersoll
There is the same difference between talent and genius that there is between a stone mason and a sculptor.
Benjamin Collins Brodie, fully Sir Benjamin Collins Brodie, 1st Baronet
It is attention, more than any difference between minds and men.—In this is the source of poetic genius, and of the genius of discovery in science.—It was this that led Newton to the invention of fluxions, and the discovery of gravitation, and Harvey to find out the circulation of the blood, and Davy to those views which laid the foundation of modern chemistry.
Discovery | Genius | Good | Invention | Nothing | Usefulness | World | Discovery |
Benjamin Collins Brodie, fully Sir Benjamin Collins Brodie, 1st Baronet
Our minds are so constructed that we can keep the attention fixed on a particular object until we have, as it were, looked all around it; and the mind that possesses this faculty in the highest degree of perfection will take cognizance of relations of which another mind has no perception. It is this, much more than any difference in the abstract power of reasoning, which constitutes the vast difference between the minds of different individuals. This is the history alike of the poetic genius and of the genius of discovery in science. “I keep the subject,” said Sir Isaac Newton, “constantly before me, and wait until the dawnings open by little and little into a full light.” It was thus that after long meditation he was led to the invention of fluxions, and to the anticipation of the modern discovery of the combustibility of the diamond. It was thus that Harvey discovered the circulation of the blood, and that those views were suggested by Davy which laid the foundation of that grand series of experimental researches which terminated in the decomposition of the earths and alkalies.
Abstract | Age | Ambition | Anticipation | Attention | Contentment | Death | Discovery | Disease | Ennui | Failure | Genius | History | Indolence | Intelligence | Invention | Little | Meditation | Men | Mind | Object | Old age | Perfection | Power | Will | Discovery |
Alphonse de Lamartine, fully Alphonse Marie Louis de Lamartine
The greatness of a popular character is less according to the ratio of his genius than the sympathy he shows with the prejudices and even the absurdities of his time. Fanatics do not select the cleverest, but the most fanatical leaders.
Let us examine more closely the significance of this vague word, reality. It may have several meanings, according to the different points of view which one takes. We may regard it as embodied in the physical world, the world of land and sea, of sky and trees, of sunshine and of storm. The real therefore will be to us that which we can touch and see, smell and taste, as one will say, "I know that is real for I can see it with my eyes." Seeing is believing, and the testimony of the senses is the superior court of appeal in controverted questions. But the world of reality may be regarded from quite a different point of view, as the world of consciousness, the mind of man, the experiences of the inner self, the Ego. Here is a world of phenomena interrelated and reciprocally dependent. It is a realm of ideas, of memory images, of fancy, of will, and of desire. The verities in this world cannot be seen, or measured, or weighed, and yet we do not hesitate to speak of them as realities; they are real as the love of friends is real, or the anger of a foe. The passion of a Romeo, the will of a Napoleon, the genius of a Goethe ... these are realities.
Anger | Consciousness | Desire | Ego | Genius | Ideas | Land | Love | Man | Memory | Mind | Passion | Phenomena | Reality | Regard | Self | Taste | Will | World | Friends |
There is but one quality necessary for the perfect understanding of character, one quality that, if man have it, he may dare to judge—that is, omniscience. Most people study character as a proofreader pores over a great poem: his ears are dulled to the majesty and music of the lines, his eyes are darkened to the magic imagination of the genius of the author; that proofreader is busy watching for an inverted comma, a misspacing, or a wrong font letter. He has an eye trained for the imperfections, the weaknesses.
Character | Genius | Imagination | Magic | Man | Music | People | Study | Understanding | Wrong |
George Steiner, fully Francis George Steiner
The ordinary man casts a shadow in a way we do not quite understand. The man of genius casts light.
George Augustus Sala, fully George Augustus Henry Sala
Language is like amber in its efficacy to circulate the electric spirit of truth, it is also like amber in embalming and preserving the relics of ancient wisdom, although one is not seldom puzzled to decipher its contents. Sometimes it locks up truths which were once well known, but which, in the course of ages, have passed out of sight and been forgotten. In other cases it holds the germs of truths, of which, though they were never plainly discerned, the genius of its framers caught a glimpse in a happy moment of divination.
Hugh Redwald Trevor-Roper, Baron Dacre of Glanton
The function of a genius is not to give new answers, but to pose new questions which time and mediocrity can resolve.
Genius | Mediocrity | Time |
Leadership is leaders acting – as well as caring, inspiring and persuading others to act – for cetain shared goals that represent the values – the wants and needs, the aspirations and expectations – of themselves and the people they represent. And the genius of leadership lies in the manner in which leaders care about, visualize, and act on their own and their followers’ values and motivations.
Chance... in the accommodation peculiar to sensorimotor intelligence, plays the same role as in scientific discovery. It is only useful to the genius and its revelations remain meaningless to the unskilled.
Genius |
First and last, what is demanded of genius is love of truth.
He who seldom speaks, and with one calm well-timed word can strike dumb the loquacious, is a genius or a hero.
Genius |