Unappreciated Genius Quotes

Thousands of geniuses live and die undiscovered--either by themselves or by others.

I'm a behind-the-scenes guy. I've got a face for radio.

A lot of the most prolific painters died broke and weren't appreciated in their time. I'm trying to remember who exactly I was thinking of - like Rembrandt, van Gogh or Gauguin. Some of those guys, they got whole floors of museums to themselves but weren't really appreciated in their time at all.

Everybody denies I am a genius - but nobody ever called me one!

What is 'cool,' anyway? Maybe it's Warne Marsh, almost totally obscure and penniless, coming in late to a fourth-rate Hollywood nightclub, playing like an angel with a couple of sidemen, but never speaking to or even acknowledging another human being.

A prophet is not without honour, save in his own country, and in his own house.

I rage against Vincent van Gogh for needing to die at 37, after painting for only ten years.

The artist cannot look to others to validate his efforts or his calling. If you don't believe me, ask Van Gogh, who produced masterpiece after masterpiece and never found a buyer in his whole life.

I felt like 'Owl Pharoah,' not everyone understood who I was as an artist.

Genius is never understood in its own time.

Blessed be, the genius who never knew good fortune! Genius in itself already means so much; what meaning does luck still hold for him?

Men's fame is like their hair, which grows after they are dead, and with just as little use to them.

It is a very lonely life that a man leads, who becomes aware of truths before their times.

Men of genius are often dull and inert in society; as the blazing meteor, when it descends to earth, is only a stone.

You know, sometimes, when they say you're ahead of your time, it's just a polite way of saying you have a real bad sense of timing.

My life was not useless; I gave important truths to the world, and it was only for want of understanding that they were disregarded. I have been ahead of my time.

I would rather write or record something great and have it overlooked than do mediocre work and have it be popular.

Death most resembles a prophet who is without honor in his own land or a poet who is a stranger among his people.

Kafka is still unrecognized. He thought he was a comic writer.

I probably have genius. But no talent.

Schubert had arguably the same melodic gift as Mozart, but even less support. He didn't have the early exposure, never got to travel anywhere, and yet generated and amassed a body of work that grew and developed and is very profound.

Poets lose half the praise they should have got, Could it be known what they discreetly blot.

I felt like it was inevitable that I was going to fail in life and die young. So I was frantically scrambling to document my stunts and pack my message into a bottle. I thought maybe I could be discovered after I'd died, like Van Gogh.

I know my music probably isn't going to matter to the public after I die, but that doesn't mean I don't have something to offer.

Popular in our time, unpopular in his. So runs the stereotype of rejected genius.