“ People who are credited with genius have, indeed, been sometimes very painstaking, but they would often show more signs of genius if they had taken less. ”
 Samuel Butler, The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912). copy citation

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“This small excess weight has been defined as a supreme capacity for taking trouble, but he who thus defined it can hardly claim genius in respect of his own definition—his capacity for taking trouble does not seem to have been abnormal. It might be more fitly described as a supreme capacity for getting its possessors into trouble of all kinds and keeping them therein so long as the genius remains. People who are credited with genius have, indeed, been sometimes very painstaking, but they would often show more signs of genius if they had taken less. “You have taken too much trouble with your opera,” said Handel to Gluck. It is not likely that the “Hailstone Chorus” or Mrs. Quickly cost their creators much pains, indeed, we commonly feel the ease with which a difficult feat has been performed to be a more distinctive mark of genius than the fact that the performer took great pains before he could achieve it.” source