Denis Diderot Quotes

Young men and young women, full of courage, originality, and genius, are everywhere to be met with.

Genius does what it must, and talent does what it can.

Genius is essentially creative; it bears the stamp of the individual who possesses it.

Creativity - like human life itself - begins in darkness.

Everyone is a genius at least once a year.

Gaiety is a quality of ordinary men. Genius always presupposes some disorder in the machine.

I'm intrigued by the dark. Out of darkness comes creation.

To think, and to feel, constitute the two grand divisions of men of genius - the men of reasoning and the men of imagination.

One of the strongest characteristics of genius is the power of lighting its own fire.

Nature is the master of talents; genius is the master of nature.

Love can reach the same level of talent, and even genius, as the discovery of differential calculus.

The ordinary man casts a shadow in a way we do not quite understand. The man of genius casts light.

It is always well to get near to men of genius.

Upper berth, lower berth, that's the difference between talent and genius.

What is called genius is the abundance of life and health.

Everyone is a genius at least once a year. The real geniuses simply have their bright ideas closer together.

The principle mark of genius is not perfection but originality, the opening of new frontiers.

Genius is the ability to put into effect what is on your mind.

Talent is a flame. Genius is a fire.

All the means of action -- the shapeless masses -- the materials -- lie everywhere about us. What we need is the celestial fire to change the flint into the transparent crystal, bright and clear. That fire is genius.

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.

The principal mark of genius is not perfection, but originality.

Talent is full of thoughts, Genius is thought. Talent is a cistern, Genius a fountain.

Wit is the god of moments, but Genius is the god of ages.

Talent is that which is in a man's power; genius is that in whose power a man is.