Pavel Durov Quotes

I'm not a prodigy - or a 'wonderboy,' as some have put it.

I never failed in mathematics. Before I was fifteen I had mastered differential and integral calculus.

In some parts of life, like mathematics and science, yeah, I was a genius. I would top all the top scores you could ever measure it by.

A genius. A criminal mastermind. A millionaire. And he is only twelve years old.

I was never a prodigy.

I won some genetic lottery. I always happened to be strangely good at mathematics in my head. I just popped out weird.

Nobody told me I was a child prodigy.

Genius is an overused word. The world has known only about a half dozen geniuses. I got only fairly near.

To be called a genius at 17 or 18 years old can sometimes cause arrested development.

I have never considered myself a prodigy. Others have used that term, but I never bought in to it.

Died—Negro Tom, the famous African Calculator, aged 80 years. He was the property of Mrs. Elizabeth Cox of Alexandria. Tom was a very black man. He was brought to this country at the age of 14, and was sold as a slave.... This man was a prodigy. Though he could never read or write, he had perfectly acquired the art of enumeration.... He could multiply seven into itself, that product by seven, and the products, so produced, by seven, for seven times. He could give the number of months, days, weeks, hours, minutes, and seconds in any period of time that any person chose to mention, allowing in his calculation for all leap years that happened in the time; he would give the number of poles, yards, feet, inches, and barley-corns in any distance, say the diameter of the earth's orbit; and in every calculation he would produce the true answer in less time than ninety-nine men out of a hundred would produce with their pens. And, what was, perhaps, more extraordinary, though interrupted in the progress of his calculation, and engaged in discourse necessary for him to begin again, but he would ... cast up plots of land. He took great notice of the lines of land which he had seen surveyed. He drew just conclusions from facts; surprisingly so, for his opportunities. Had his [Thomas Fuller’s] opportunity been equal to those of thousands of his fellow-men ... even a NEWTON himself, need have ashamed to acknowledge him a Brother in Science.

I was actually not some sort of a child prodigy by any stretch.

I'm a bordering genius.

I had two brilliant children and one genius. Elon could figure out things when he was very young and was always advanced for his age. He could hold a conversation about something that was way beyond his years, and he read voraciously.

There's a stark difference between the words 'prodigy' and 'genius.' Prodigies can very quickly learn what other people have already figured out; geniuses discover that which no one has ever previously discovered. Prodigies learn; geniuses do.

You could be a music prodigy at age 4, like Mozart, but you can't be a writing prodigy.

But for my own example, I'd never believe one little kid could have so much brains!

[On Sophie Germain] When a person of the sex which, according to our customs and prejudices, must encounter infinitely more difficulties than men... succeeds nevertheless in surmounting these obstacles and penetrating the most obscure parts of [number theory], then without doubt she must have the noblest courage, quite extraordinary talents and superior genius.

Galois read the geometry from cover to cover as easily as other boys read a pirate yarn.

Genius. It's a word. What does it really mean? If I win I'm a genius. If I don't, I'm not.

The thing that most people call 'genius' I do not believe in.

This is the nature of genius, to be able to grasp the knowable even when no one else recognizes that it is present.

I remember being taught to read at a very early age. Like creepy young. I remember being in the crib, reading. My parents were very impressed. My reading speed, comprehension and overall ability has remained at that level ever since.

... Geniuses have a little extra something. There's that little something that you know is a little different.

Perhaps only a Genius can truly understand Genius.