Gerard Manley Hopkins Quotes

Of all the arts poetry (which owes its origin almost entirely to genius and will least be guided by precept or example) maintains the first rank.

Genius in general is poetic. Where genius has been active it has been poetically active. The truly moral person is a poet.

Of course creativity is a mystery. We don't know what drives it or what constitutes it. It's one of those things, like genius, you know it when you see it but it's impossible to define.

We hold that the most wonderful and splendid proof of genius is a great poem produced in a civilized age.

A work of art is the unique result of a unique temperament.

Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see.

Key! is the greatest rapper alive. I honestly, truly believe that no one is as effortless, weird, and creative, and themselves as he has been for years and years.

Genius resembles a bell; in order to ring it must be suspended into pure air, and when a foreign body touches it, its joyful toneis silenced.

There are two indices of genuine art: it is inimitable and it is ineffable.

Dryden 's genius was of that sort which catches fire by its own motion; his chariot wheels get hot by driving fast.

Democritus maintains that there can be no great poet without a spite of madness.

As monarchs have a right to call in the specie of a state, and raise its value, by their own impression; so are there certain prerogative geniuses, who are above plagiaries, who cannot be said to steal, but, from their improvement of a thought, rather to borrow it, and repay the commonwealth of letters with interest again; and may wore properly be said to adopt, than to kidnap a sentiment, by leaving it heir to their own fame.

Creativity, which is the expression of our originality, helps us stay mindful that what we bring to the world is completely original and cannot be compared.

Individuality of expression is the beginning and end of all art.

Genius gives birth, talent delivers. What Rembrandt or Van Gogh saw in the night can never be seen again.

Never imitate the eccentricities of genius, but toil after it in its truer flights. They are not so easy to follow, but they lead to higher regions.

Peter had a genius for imitation; but he lacked true genius, which is creative and makes all from nothing.

I am not sure, once a poet has found out what has been written already, and how it was written - once, in short, he has learnt his trade - that he should bother with literature at all. Poetry is not like surgery, a technique that can be copied. Every operation the poet performs is unique, and need never be done again.

I tell poets that when a line just floats into your head, don't pay attention 'cause it probably has floated into somebody else's head.

A certain strangeness, something of the blossoming of the aloe, is indeed an element in all true works of art: that they shall excite or surprise us is indispensable.

There is a fine line between insanity and genius.

In philosophy equally as in poetry it is the highest and most useful prerogative of genius to produce the strongest impressions of novelty, while it rescues admitted truths from the neglect caused by the very circumstance of their universal admission.

One must not imitate what one wants to create.

The difference between Talent and Genius is that Talent says things which he has never heard but once, and Genius things which he has never heard.

When it comes to words I have a uniqueness that I find almost impossible in art – and it's my words that actually make my art quite unique.