Genius is one percent inspiration
and ninety-nine percent perspiration.
- Thomas Edison
If we all did the things we are capable of doing,
we would literally astound ourselves.
- Thomas Edison
I have not failed.
I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.
- Thomas Edison
Opportunity is missed by most people
because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.
- Thomas Edison
Many of life's failures are people who did not realize
how close they were to success when they gave up.
- Thomas Edison
I have friends in overalls
whose friendship I would not swap
for the favor of the kings of the world.
- Thomas A. Edison
There is no substitute for hard work.
- Thomas Edison
Our greatest weakness lies in giving up.
The most certain way to succeed
is always to try just one more time.
- Thomas A. Edison
I do not believe in the God of the theologians;
but that there is a Supreme Intelligence I do not doubt.
- Thomas Edison
Everyone is a genius at least once a year;
a real genius has his original ideas closer together.
- Georg Lichtenberg
Everybody is a genius.
But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree,
it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.
- Albert Einstein
The difference between stupidity and genius
is that genius has its limits.
- Albert Einstein
There's a fine line between genius and insanity.
I have erased this line.
- Oscar Levant
Genius may have its limitations,
but stupidity is not thus handicapped.
- Elbert Hubbard
What is called genius is the
abundance of life and health.
- Henry David Thoreau
The man of genius inspires us with
a boundless confidence in our own powers.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Whatever you can do, or dream you can, Begin it.
Boldness has genius, power and magic in it, Begin it now.
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Sometimes, indeed, there is such a discrepancy
between the genius and his human qualities
that one has to ask oneself whether
a little less talent might not have been better.
- Carl Jung
Genius always finds itself a century too early.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
I'm not a genius.
I'm just a tremendous bundle of experience.
- R. Buckminster Fuller
When nature has work to be done,
she creates a genius to do it.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Important ideas can come from unexpected places.
We tend to label people - Genius, Idiot,
Socialist, Regressive, Wingnut, Revolutionary, Terrorist.
But it is helpful to remind ourselves to be open
to good ideas - whatever their source.
It is equally important to avoid accepting any idea
merely because we respect that person's
other ideas or accomplishments.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Genius is the power to labor better and more availably.
Deserve thy genius: exalt it.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Common sense is genius dressed in its working clothes.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Men of lofty genius,
when they are doing the least work,
are most active.
- Leonardo da Vinci
When you have shut your doors, and darkened your room,
remember, never to say that you are alone,
for you are not alone, but God is within,
and your genius is within.
- Epictetus
To see things in the seed, that is genius.
- Lao Tzu
Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex...
It takes a touch of genius - and a lot of courage
to move in the opposite direction.
- Albert Einstein
Towering genius disdains a beaten path.
It seeks regions hitherto unexplored.
- Abraham Lincoln
Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius
and it's better to be absolutely ridiculous
than absolutely boring.
- Marilyn Monroe
True genius resides in the capacity for evaluation
of uncertain, hazardous, and conflicting information.
- Winston Churchill
If you wish to succeed in life,
make perseverance your bosom friend,
experience your wise counselor,
caution your elder brother,
and hope your guardian genius.
- Joseph Addison
Nature is full of genius, full of the divinity;
so that not a snowflake escapes its fashioning hand.
- Henry David Thoreau
Everyone is born a genius,
but the process of living de-geniuses them.
- R. Buckminster Fuller
Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence.
Talent will not;
nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent.
Genius will not;
unrewarded genius is almost a proverb.
Education will not;
the world is full of educated derelicts.
Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.
- Calvin Coolidge
Not all Heroes wear capes.
- On an Apple Inc. "Genius Bar" T-shirt
I was more independent than any farmer in Concord,
for I was not anchored to a house or farm,
but could follow the bent of my genius,
which is a very crooked one, every moment.
- Henry David Thoreau
The Four Stages of Public Opinion
I (Just after publication): The novelty is absurd
and subversive of Religion and Morality.
The propounder both fool and knave.
II (Twenty years later): The Novelty is absolute Truth
and will yield a full and satisfactory
explanation of things in general -
The propounder a man of sublime genius and perfect virtue.
III (Forty years later): The Novelty won't explain
things in general after all, and therefore is a wretched failure.
The propounder a very ordinary person advertised by a clique.
IV (A century later): The Novelty a mixture of truth and error.
Explains as much as could reasonably be expected.
The propounder worthy of all honor
in spite of his share of human frailties,
as one who has added to the permanent possessions of science.
- Thomas Henry [T. H.] Huxley
The Artist is he who detects and applies the law
from observation of the works of Genius,
whether of man or Nature.
The Artisan is he who merely applies
the rules which others have detected.
- Henry David Thoreau
I love being married.
It's so great to find that one special person
you want to annoy for the rest of your life.
- Rita Rudner
Be careful not to do your good deeds
when there's no one watching you.
- Tom Lehrer
If you are not one of us, you are one of them.
- the movie The Matrix (1999)
No one can have a higher opinion of you than I have,
and I think you're a slimy, contemptible sewer rat!
- the movie The Great Mouse Detective
One does not leave a convivial party before closing time.
- Winston Churchill
It is a truth universally acknowledged that
when one part of your life starts going okay,
another falls spectacularly to pieces.
- the movie Bridget Jones Diary
Damn it boss, I like you too much not to say it.
You've got everything except one thing: madness!
- the movie Zorba The Greek
One great thing about getting old is that
you can get out of all sorts of social obligations
just by saying you're too tired.
- George Carlin
Everyone should have at least two friends -
one to talk to and one to talk about.
- Anonymous
Give a man one rabbit, and he will eat for a day;
give a man two rabbits, and he will
feed his family and his neighbors
and return you 64,768 rabbits in change.
- Anonymous
No one knows what's next, but everybody does it.
- George Carlin
One man's theology is another man's belly laugh.
- Robert A. Heinlein
Oh, if only God would give me some sign.
If He would just speak to me once. Anything.
One sentence. Two words. If He would just cough.
- the movie Love and Death
Love is the delusion that one woman differs from another.
- H. L. Mencken
One man's remorse is another man's reminiscence.
- Ogden Nash
Never argue at the dinner table, for the one who is not hungry
always gets the best of the argument.
- Voltaire
You ask me if I keep a notebook
to record my great ideas.
I've only ever had one.
- Albert Einstein
A friend is someone who will bail you out of jail.
A best friend is the one sitting next
to you saying "boy was that fun."
- The Maugles
One cannot have everything the way he would like it.
A man has no business to be depressed by a disappointment,
anyway; he ought to make up his mind to get even.
- Mark Twain
One good Husband is worth two good Wives;
for the scarcer things are, the more they're valued.
- Benjamin Franklin
One good reason to only maintain a small circle of friends
is that three out of four murders
are committed by people who know the victim.
- George Carlin
There's a couple of things they don't teach you
in Harvard Business School,
one is how to cope with defeat,
the other is how to handle a shotgun.
- The Simpsons Movie (2007)
You're already a bastard.
Might as well be an enlightened one.
- the movie Simon Birch
When two people decide to get a divorce,
it isn't a sign that they "don't understand" one another,
but a sign that they have, at last, begun to.
- Helen Rowland
You know, it takes two to get one in trouble.
- the movie She Done Him Wrong (1933)
Being a leader is like being a lady,
if you have to go around telling people you are one, you aren't.
- Margaret Thatcher
The best way to appreciate your job
is to imagine yourself without one.
- Oscar Wilde
One man's "magic" is another man's engineering.
"Supernatural" is a null word.
- Robert A. Heinlein
Principles have no real force except when one is well-fed.
- Mark Twain
To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism.
To steal from many is research.
- Anonymous
Every one desires to live long,
but no one would be old.
- Abraham Lincoln
"Appeasement" is the policy of feeding your friends to a crocodile,
one at a time, in hopes that the crocodile will eat you last.
- Franklin D. Roosevelt
Please sign up on the form below to receive
my Free Daily Inspiration - Daily Quotes email.
You can also search my large collection of Funny Quotes.
May the world be kind to you,
and may your own thoughts be gentle upon yourself.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
All materials & writings are copyright © Jonathan Lockwood Huie, except for quotes and other specifically identified material which belong to their respective copyright holders if applicable.