Henry Ward Beecher Quotes

Talent does what it can; genius does what it must.

Of the three prerequisites of genius; the first is soul; the second is soul; and the third is soul.

Genius is not a single power, but a combination of great powers. It reasons, but it is not reasoning; it judges, but it is not judgment; imagines, but it is not imagination; it feels deeply and fiercely, but it is not passion. It is neither, because it is all.

Genius--the free and harmonious play of all the faculties of a human being.

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.

Genius is more often found in a cracked pot than in a whole one.

Could I have chosen my own genius, I should have made myself a great poet.

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

… there is a correlation between the creative and the screwball. So we must suffer the screwball gladly.

There are very few things of virtuosity or genius that you can actually witness.

Genius gives birth, talent delivers.

Talent is some one faculty unusually developed; genius commands all the faculties.

Every child is in a way a genius; and every genius is in a way a child.

Some were brilliant bordering on genius. Others, genius bordering on madness

Talent may frolic and juggle; genius realizes and adds.

Genius is talent provided with ideals. Genius starves while talent wears purple and fine linen. The man of genius of today will infifty years' time be in most cases no more than a man of talent.

Talent warms-up the given (as they say in cookery) and makes it apparent; genius brings something new. But our time lets talent pass for genius. They want to abolish the genius, deify the genius, and let talent forge ahead.

... the genius never makes anything new, but always something that is just different, and the average talents provide him the possibility within which his genius condenses into achievements.

The inconsistency of genius is a consistent theme of creativity.

Neither can we admit that definition of genius that some would propose--"a power to accomplish all that we undertake;" for we might multiply examples to prove that this definition of genius contains more than the thing defined. Cicero failed in poetry, Pope in painting, Addison in oratory; yet it would be harsh to deny genius to these men.

It is the curse of talent that, although it labors with greater steadiness and perseverance than genius, it does not reach its goal, while genius already on the summit of the ideal, gazes laughingly about.

Take the sum of human achievement in action, in science, in art, in literature subtract the work of the men above forty, and while we should miss great treasures, even priceless treasures, we would practically be where we are today ... The effective, moving, vitalizing work of the world is done between the ages of twenty-five and forty.

And what is Genius but finer love, a love impersonal, a love of the flower and perfection of things, and a desire to draw a new picture or copy of the same? It looks to the cause and life: it proceeds from within outward, whilst Talent goes from without inward.

Inspiration is the opportunity of genius.

Genius is the error in the system.