Genius

“ How varied are the subjects which her versatile genius has delineated! Has it not fathomed the depths of the poet's soul, and laid bare to our gaze its glorious intellectual operations and their results,—its creations and aspirings,—its hopes and fears,—not only with poetic feeling, but with philosophic accuracy? Has not that genius led us into the interior of conventional life, and showed to us the vanity, the heartlessness, the petty strifes, the mean jealousies of the circles whose idols are outward appearances? ”

“ And the genius, dormant before, and unsuspected save by the old fond father, sat enthroned visibly on the pale, thoughtful brow, and looked out gloriously from those serene, large eyes, filled as they were to overflowing with a clear, lustrous, tranquil light, which revealed to the most casual and thoughtless observers, the purity, the truth, the whiteness of the soul within. ”

“ Hence the vast expansion of his gigantic genius, comprehending at one bold view, through after life, the philosophy of mind, of nature, of science, of art, of government, of society, and all the relations of creation, from the dust under his feet, through the myriads of animalculæ in a drop of water, up to the bright seraphs of the skies. ”

“ I felt within me the stirrings of what I could not help believing to be genius—true genius. I longed to distinguish myself, to emerge from the crowd, from the background, to make myself remarked, to do something, to be somebody, to see my name a famous one. ”

“ Such is the picture of genius viewed in the stillness of MEDITATION; but there is yet a more excited state, when, as if consciousness were mixing with its reveries, in the allusion of a scene, of a person, of a passion, the emotions of the soul affect even the organs of sense. This excitement is experienced when the poet in the excellence of invention, and the philosopher in the force of intellect, alike share in the hours of inspiration and the ENTHUSIASM of genius. ”

“ Fair thoughts rise in the heart and mind of genius, like the fragrant breath which the dewy flowers exhale in the face of the rising sun, and they utter themselves as simply as matin songs warbled by sweet-throated birds. ”

“ Three hundred thousand sesterces cannot give the fame of genius. Their eloquence may be said to have built up their fortunes; and, indeed, such is the power, I might say the inspiration, of eloquence, that in every age we have examples of men, who by their talents raised themselves to the summit of their ambition. ”

“ Those men, therefore, who have been endowed with the genius almost unconsciously to absorb, classify, combine, arrange and dispense vast knowledge in a bold, striking or noble manner, are the recognized greatest men of genius for the simple reason that the readers of the world who know most recognize all they know in these writers, together with that spirit of sublime imagination that suggests still greater realms of truth and beauty. ”

“ When her genius folded its wings, and walked forth in the usual garb of society, that genius might be still recognized in the courteous and nicely-fitting compliment, the piquant remark, the brilliant repartee, and sometimes in the full flow of eloquence. ”

“ Ay, your genius may be as great as he lists, and for all that stretch himself many a time morning and evening on the green grass, while the fresh breeze floats over him, and stare up into the sky, and not a whisper shall the inspired Muses breathe in his ear. ”

“ The poet, the seer, the musician, the sculptor know something of this inability to reach in their work expression worthy of its conception. And if this is so with the artist, how much more so with the genius, who is compelled by a force he does not wholly understand, and yet is possessed of some executive power of demonstration!
The genius lives in advance of his time, having a flash-like insight into knowledge hidden as mystery from the understandings of his fellow-men. ”

“ How much more comprehensible our great critic becomes when he nobly describes genius, "as the power of mind that collects, combines, amplifies, and animates; the energy without which judgment is cold, and knowledge is inert!" And it is this POWER OF MIND, this primary faculty and native aptitude, which we deem may exist separately from education and habit, since these are often found unaccompanied by genius. ”

“ Reading furnishes Matter, Reflexion digests it, and makes it our own; as the Flesh and Blood which are made out of the Food we eat. And Prudence and the Knowledge of the World, must direct us how to employ our Genius, and on all occasions make the best Use of it. ”

“ What the painter wants, in addition to, and as the complement of, the other elements, is genius and sense; what the doctor needs to crown and give worth and safety to his accomplishments, is sense and genius: in the first case, more of this, than of that; in the second, more of that, than of this. These are the “Brains” and the “That.”
And what is genius? and what is sense? Genius is a peculiar native aptitude, or tendency, to any one calling or pursuit over all others. ”

“ I think he was admiring not the genius, but the consequences to which the genius had brought him—a vast genius, a magnificent genius, a genius wonderfully bright, and dazzling, and strong,—to seize, to know, to see, to flash upon falsehood and scorch it into perdition, to penetrate into the hidden motives, and expose the black thoughts of men,—an awful, an evil spirit. ”

“ Among the maxims, called triads, which have come down to us from the Celtic bards, we find this: "The three primary requisites of genius,—an eye that can see nature; a heart that can feel nature; and boldness that dares follow nature." ”

“ But genius looks forward: the eyes of man are set in his forehead, not in his hindhead: man hopes: genius creates. ”

“ Look again, as a result of the disturbing force of genius, at the effects of great inventions—how unexpected, complex, subtle, all but miraculous—throwing out alike the path of human history, and the calculations of the student. ”

“ But genius, and nothing else, is not enough, even for a painter; he must likewise have sense; and what is sense? Sense drives, or ought to drive, the coach; sense regulates, combines, restrains, commands, all the rest—even the genius; and sense implies exactness and soundness, power and promptitude of mind.
Then for the young doctor, he must have as his main, his master faculty, SENSE—Brains—νοῦς, justness of mind, because his subject-matter is one in which principle works, rather than impulse, as in painting ”

“ So there are premonitory stirrings, as sweet and inexpressible, in the breast of the heaven-made child of genius. They are its surest sign. Talent grows insensibly, steadily and discreetly. Genius usually has, in early years, a joyous restlessness, a keen, insatiable relish of life ”

“ Its learning has been the learning of the world, its art the art of the world, its genius the genius of the world, its greatness, glory, grandeur, and majesty have been almost, though not absolutely, all that in these respects the world has had to boast of. ”

“ Nay, rather, let us believe that, if our eyes were opened, we should fulfil the requirement of Genius, to “see the universal in the particular,” by seeing God’s whole likeness, His whole glory, reflected as in a mirror even in the meanest flower ”

“ Hopeful, but solitary; thou art made to bless generations by the profuseness of thy wealth. The energies which God gave thee are still slumbering; and the centuries which have passed over thee have departed without seeing the day of thy gladness! But thy genius, though hidden, is mighty within thee! ”

“ It can classify and arrange, but it can never discover or invent. Talent can understand and admire the mechanical powers; Genius puts them in harness, and makes them traverse land and sea to do his bidding. ”

“ It was the consciousness of genius, the proud conviction that he might indeed win the object of his love; win, and be worthy of her, and give her a name proud as those of the men of genius whose lives they had read and venerated together. ”

“ Whether we view him on the Side of Art or Nature, he ought equally to engage our Attention: Whether we respect the Force and Greatness of his Genius, the Extent of his Knowledge and Reading, the Power and Address with which he throws out and applies either Nature, or Learning, there is ample Scope both for our Wonder and Pleasure. If his Diction, and the cloathing of his Thoughts attract us, how much more must we be charm’d with the Richness, and Variety, of his Images and Ideas! ”

“ Talent has lined the walls with a hundred clever things, and could line miles of surface; genius gives us but one example, and the clever things are silenced. Here is the difference between that which expresses a noble idea, and that which is dexterously conventional. ”

“ and, also, that, like poetry, one must be born with a genius for it. ”

“ This is a secret of genius, to take the most coarse and common material, the meanest surroundings, the most sordid material prospects, and out of the vehement passions which sometimes dominate all human beings to build up with these poor elements scenes and passages, the dramatic and emotional power of which at once enforce attention and awaken the profoundest interest."—New York Tribune. ”

“ But what an idea does it suggest to us of the mighty will, the indomitable spirit, the decided and unchangeable vocation, that, in spite of so many impediments, his genius fulfilled its destiny, and attained at last to the supremacy at which it aimed from the first! ”

“ A genius, so called, is a Sensitive whose waking dreams are the conceptions of exalted Spirit minds, reflected or projected upon his or her aura, which, like a mirror, receives the impression and in turn reflects it upon the brain of the Sensitive. ”

“ While her make-believe stories, her thirst for knowledge, her spiritual wrestlings, and the passionate response of her soul to high thinking, noble music, and the beautiful in all its forms, show that the making of genius was there in germ. ”

“ It is beautifully written, with power, incisiveness, loftiness, and variety of treatment, in elegant, pure language, with plenty of metaphor, while it is comprehensive and covers an amount of ground that does you great credit. You have been carried far by the sweeping sails of your genius and your resentment, both of which have been a great help to you; for your genius has lent a lofty magnificence to your resentment, which in turn has added power and sharpness to your genius. ”

“ There is the noteworthy declaration that the "greatest, noblest, and rarest of all the talents which constitute a genius" is the gift of "a deep and profound discernment of all the mazes, windings, and labyrinths which perplex the heart of man." ”

“ Taking genius, then, as synonymous with great inventor, accepting it de facto historically and psychologically, our task is limited to the attempt to separate characters that seem, from observation and experiment, to belong to it as peculiarly its own. ”

“ Can art, alas! or genius, guide the head,
Where truth and freedom from the heart are fled?
Can lesser wheels repeat their native stroke,
When the prime function of the soul is broke? ”

“ And that genius, finding itself at the North Pole amid Cimmerian darkness in the atmosphere of a childish intellect—in other words, the society of a pure-minded virgin, who, though a good romance-writer, writes nothing but what a virgin may read, and, though a bel esprit, says her prayers and goes to church—then genius—well, pardon my ignorance, what does genius do? ”

“ Departing with a boldness of genius from the systems of his predecessors in the same walks of literature, he delights by his ingenuity, while he astonishes by his courage, and surprises by his novelty. ”

“ Now so to place these images, totalised and fitted to the limits of the human mind, as to elicit from and to superinduce upon the forms themselves the moral reflections to which they approximate, to make the external internal, the internal external, to make nature thought and thought nature—this is the mystery of genius in the Fine Arts. ”

“ We are very sure that the beauty of form, the expression of the passions, the art of composition, even the power of giving a general air of grandeur to your work, is at present very much under the dominion of rules. These excellences were, heretofore, considered merely as the effects of genius; and justly, if genius is not taken for inspiration, but as the effect of close observation and experience. ”

“ For the Turn that Education, Company, Business, the Taste of the Age, and above all, Principles of vitious or virtuous Manners, give to a Man's natural Capacities, is what chiefly forms his Genius. Thus we say of some, they have a rude unpolish'd Genius; of others, they have a fine, polite Genius. The manner of applying the natural Powers of the Mind, is what alone may produce the most different and opposite Genij. Libertine Principles, and Virtuous Morals, may form the Genius of a Rake, from the same natural Capacity, out of which Virtuous Principles might have form'd an Hero. ”

“ Are we to hope that such an advance in ideas will take place in our own day? We have perhaps advanced beyond the stage when men regard genius as distinctly heaven-born, and the direct gift of the gods, apart from any natural conditions. ”

“ The first is, genius, without a full vein of which no study, says Horace, can avail us. By genius I would understand that power or rather those powers of the mind, which are capable of penetrating into all things within our reach and knowledge, and of distinguishing their essential differences. ”