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41 " Because you learn things when you talk to people, especially people who aren't like you. You learn what a goddamned polyglot race we are, we marvelous human beings. Some people are friendly. Some people are gruff. Some want security. Others want independence. Some want the government to run things. Some want to run things on their own. Some people need a helping hand. Some people need a kick in the pants. Some want to live and to die in the same small town. Some want to ramble the wide world. Some are content with little. Some cannot stop striving. Some want to life beside a true love, to worship a single god. Some crave a universe of loves, a universe of gods. I could go on and on. The differences between them, between me and you, between you and the woman sitting next to you at the hairdresser, wearing that dress you'd never wear in a million years, reading that book you wouldn't touch. The genius of politics, of people like Frank, is to link them all, understand them all, to represent them all. Not just the ones you agree with, the ones that think and act like you do. "
― Beatriz Williams , Tiny Little Thing (Schuyler Sisters, #2)
42 " We have never understood how birds manage to fly,Nor who the genius is who makes up dreams,Now how heaven and earth can appear in a poem. "
― Robert Bly , Talking into the Ear of a Donkey: Poems
43 " Not to grow up properly is to retain our 'caterpillar' quality from childhood (where it is a virtue) into adulthood (where it becomes a vice). In childhood our credulity serves us well. It helps us to pack, with extraordinary rapidity, our skulls full of the wisdom of our parents and our ancestors. But if we don't grow out of it in the fullness of time, our caterpillar nature makes us a sitting target for astrologers, mediums, gurus, evangelists and quacks. The genius of the human child, mental caterpillar extraordinary, is for soaking up information and ideas, not for criticizing them. If critical faculties later grow it will be in spite of, not because of, the inclinations of childhood. The blotting paper of the child's brain is the unpromising seedbed, the base upon which later the sceptical attitude, like a struggling mustard plant, may possibly grow. We need to replace the automatic credulity of childhood with the constructive scepticism of adult science. "
― Richard Dawkins , Unweaving the Rainbow: Science, Delusion and the Appetite for Wonder
44 " Here, in Lorrain's poisoned little jewel of a tale (“The Man Who Made Wax Heads”) the consummate achievement of decadent art is caught in miniature. The genius of the artist entangles perpetrators and victims in a sticky web of perverse delights, in which exploitation becomes collusion, the ripples of guilt spread outward, and the real criminal slips away. In the end, responsibility is lodged firmly with the consumer, forced – he must confess – by his own perverse desires, to buy into the values of this particularly black market. "
― Jennifer Birkett
45 " I have never felt the need to worship someone or something, but I recognize the beauty of creation, the miraculosity of existence, and honor the genius behind the scene, who came up with all of this. "
― Stefan Emunds
46 " The team must consist of three sorts of specialists, he says. Otherwise the revolution, whether in politics or the arts or the sciences or whatever, is sure to fail.The rarest of these specialists, he says, is an authentic genius - a person capable of having seemingly good ideas not in in general circulation. " A genius working alone," he says, " is invariably ignored as a lunatic." The second sort of specialist is a lot easier to find; a highly intelligent citizen in good standing in his or her community, who understands and admires the fresh ideas of the genius, and who testifies that the genius is far from mad. " A person like this working alone," says Slazinger, " can only yearn loud for changes, but fail to say what their shaped should be." The third sort of specialist is a person who can explain everything, no matter how complicated, to the satisfaction of most people, no matter how stupid or pigheaded they may be. " He will say almost anything in order to be interesting and exciting," says Slazinger. " Working alone, depending solely on his own shallow ideas, he would be regarded as being as full of shit as a Christmas turkey. "
47 " A man who is awake in the open field at night or who wanders over silent paths experiences the world differently than by day. Nighness vanishes, and with it distance; everything is equally far and near, close by us and yet mysteriously remote. Space loses its measures. There are whispers and sounds, and we do not know where or what they are. Our feelings too are peculiarly ambiguous. There is a strangeness about what is intimate and dear, and a seductive charm about the frightening. There is no longer a distinction between the lifeless and the living, everything is animate and soulless, vigilant and asleep at once. What the day brings on and makes recognizable gradually, emerges out of the dark with no intermediary stages. The encounter suddenly confronts us, as if by a miracle: What is the thing we suddenly see - an enchanted bride, a monster, or merely a log? Everything teases the traveller, puts on a familiar face and the next moment is utterly strange, suddenly terrifies with awful gestures and immediately resumes a familiar and harmless posture.Danger lurks everywhere. Out of the dark jaws of the night which gape beside the traveller, any moment a robber may emerge without warning, or some eerie terror, or the uneasy ghost of a dead man - who knows what may once have happened at that very spot? Perhaps mischievous apparitions of the fog seek to entice him from the right path into the desert where horror dwells, where wanton witches dance their rounds which no man ever leaves alive. Who can protect him, guide him aright, give him good counsel? The spirit of Night itself, the genius of its kindliness, its enchantment, its resourcefulness, and its profound wisdom. She is indeed the mother of all mystery. The weary she wraps in slumber, delivers from care, and she causes dreams to play about their souls. Her protection is enjoyed by the un-happy and persecuted as well as by the cunning, whom her ambivalent shadows offer a thousand devices and contrivances. With her veil she also shields lovers, and her darkness keeps ward over all caresses, all charms hidden and revealed. Music is the true language of her mystery - the enchanting voice which sounds for eyes that are closed and in which heaven and earth, the near and the far, man and nature, present and past, appear to make themselves understood.But the darkness of night which so sweetly invites to slumber also bestows new vigilance and illumination upon the spirit. It makes it more perceptive, more acute, more enterprising. Knowledge flares up, or descends like a shooting star - rare, precious, even magical knowledge.And so night, which can terrify the solitary man and lead him astray, can also be his friend, his helper, his counsellor. "
48 " I’d like to THANK the genius who saw a bunch of cherries and thought....HEY!! If I dry out a bunch of those berry seeds, call them “BEANS”, smash them and add hot water, it will be AWESOME!!!! "
― Tanya Masse
49 " The only genius that's worth anything is the genius for hard work. "
― Kathleen Winsor
50 " There is no off position on the genius button. "
51 " Universality is the distinguishing mark of genius. There is no such thing as a special genius, a genius for mathematics, or for music, or even for chess, but only a universal genius. The genius is a man who knows everything without having learned it. "
― Otto Weininger , Sex and Character: An Investigation of Fundamental Principles
52 " When we allow the genius of simple nature to flow through us we become every genius who has ever lived. "
― Bryant McGill , Simple Reminders: Inspiration for Living Your Best Life
53 " When the wind blows, curtain steps aside; when the genius blows, the intelligent stands aside! "
54 " The Seeker, The Teacher and The Genius:Knowing is an art; communicating that knowledge is art twice over; but it is only the genius who can use that knowledge. "
55 " By the time the clever reaches the clouds, the genius is already on the stars. "
56 " Let us not compare the genius with the clever "
57 " Nobody is, was, will be born smart. But for you to be smart, and act smart, you need to think smart always. It is not a subject of your alma mater, it is the side and fries of what the genius within can comprehend, comply and captivate. In every beginning has a twelve kick start, promotion of the relativity of your new thinking, the story of a bunch of math and the spirit of a wonder apple. "
― Prince Akwarandu
58 " Knowledge does not equate to intelligence. It is the application of knowledge that separates the genius from the fool. "
59 " Gutenberg (hesitantly): Perhaps the book, like God, is an idea some men will cling to. The revolution of print pursued a natural course. Like a river, print flowed to its readers, and the cheapness of the means permitted it, where the channel was narrow, to trickle. This electronic flood you describe has no banks; it massively delivers but what to whom? There is something intrinsically small about its content, compared to the genius of its working. And--if I may point out a technical problem--its product never achieves autonomy from its means of delivery. A book can lie unread for a century, and all it needs to come to life is to be scanned by a literate brain. "
― John Updike
60 " There is no genius in life like the genius of energy and activity. "