His speeches were prepared with that infinite capacity for taking pains, which is said to be genius.

-Acheson, Dean Gooderham
  Of  Winston Churchill. Grapes from Thorns.

There is sometimes a greater judgement shewn in deviating from the rules of art, than in adhering to them; and†there ismore beauty inthe works of a great genius who is ignorant of all the rules of art, than in the works of a little genius, who not only knows but scrupulously observes them.

-Addison,Joseph
  In The Spectator, no.592,10 Sep.

   Conceit spoils the finest genius†and the great charm of all power is modesty.

-Alcott, Louisa May
  Little Women, pt.1, ch.7.

I am a free man, I do not need to copy Petrarch or Boccaccio. My own genius is enough. Let others worry themselves about style and so cease to be themselves. Without a master, without a model, without a guide, without artifice,Igotowork and earnmy living, my well- being, and my fame.What do Ineedmore? Witha goose quill and a few sheets of paper I mock the universe.

-Aretino, Pietro
Quoted in  J H Plumb (ed)  The Horizon Book of the Renaissance (1961, new edn by Penguin,1982).

It is not in the outward and visible world of material life that the Celtic genius of Wales or Ireland can at this day hope to count for much; it is in the inward world of thought and science.What it has been, what is has done, what it will be or will do, as a matter of modern politics.

-Arnold, Matthew
  'On the Study of Celtic Literature'.

So we have the Philistine of genius in religionöLuther; the Philistine of genius in politicsöCromwell; the Philistine of genius in literatureöBunyan.

-Arnold, Matthew
  Mixed Essays,'Lord Falkland'.

A neurotic can perfectly well be a literary genius, but his greatest danger isalwaysthat hewill not recognize when he is dull.

-Auchincloss, Louis Stanton
  Pioneers and Caretakers:  A Study of Nine American Women Novelists.

Jane Austen is the only novelist I know whose peculiar genius lies in taking perfectly ordinary people through ordinary situations, and transmogrifying them into fascinating fiction.

-Banks, Lynne Reid
  In her entry in Contemporary Novelists, 5th edn.

I have known no man of genius who had not to pay, in some affliction or defect either physical or spiritual, for what the gods had given him.

-Beerbohm, Sir (Henry) Max(imilian)
  And Even Now,'The Pines'.

I have infused life, glowing eloquence, philosophy, taste, sentiment, wit, and humor into the daily newspaper† Shakespeare is the great genius of the dramaöScott of the novelöMilton and Byron of the poemöand I mean to be the genius of the daily newspaper press.

-Bennett,James Gordon, Snr
c.1836  Quoted in Oliver Carlson The Man Who Made News: James Gordon Bennett (1942), ch.10.

If we could all live a thousand years†we would each, at least once during that period, be considered a genius.

-Berger,John Peter
  G, pt.3, ch.6.

   I no longer wonder the elegant arts are unknown here; the rigor of the climate suspends the very powers of the understanding; what then must become of those of the imagination?† Geniuswill never mount high, wherethe faculties of the mind are benumbed half the year.

-Brooke, Frances ne¤  e Moore
  The History of Emily Montague,'Letter 49'.

Since when was genius found respectable?

-Browning, Elizabeth ne¤  e Barrett
  Aurora Leigh, bk.6.

Shakespeare's name, you may depend upon it, stands absurdly too high and will go down.He had no invention as to stories, none whatever. He took all his plots from oldnovels, and threw their stories into dramatic shape† That he threw over whatever he did write some flashes of genius, nobody can deny; but this was all.

-Rochdale
  Letter to  James Hogg, 24 Mar.

Though taste, though genius bless To some divine excess, Faints the cold work till thou inspire the whole; What each, what all supply May court, may charm our eye, Thou, only thou can'st raise the meeting soul!

-Collins,William
  Odes on Several Descriptive and  Allegoric Subjects,'Ode to Simplicity', no.8.

There is only one proved method of assisting the advancement of pure scienceöthat of picking men of genius, backing them heavily, and leaving them to direct themselves.

-Conant,James Bryant
  Letter to the NewYork Times,13  Aug.

What makes men of genius, or rather, what they make, is not new ideas, it is that ideaöpossessing themöthat what has been said has still not been said enough.

-Delacroix, (Ferdinand Victor) Euge'  ne
  The Journal of Euge'  ne Delacroix (translated by W Pach, 1948), entry for15 May.

Le ge¤  nie se sent; mais il ne s'imite point. Genius is felt, but it is not imitated.

-Diderot, Denis
  Discours sur la poe¤  sie dramatique.

Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself, but talent instantly recognises genius.

-Doyle, SirArthur Conan
  The Valley of Fear, ch.1.

Every age has a kind of universal genius, which inclines those that live in it to some particular studies.

-Dryden,John
  An Essay of Dramatic Poesy,'Shakespeare and Ben Jonson Compared'.