Genius
A genius is someone embodying exceptional intellectual ability, creativity, or originality, typically to a degree that is associated with the achievement of unprecedented insight. There is no scientifically precise definition of genius, and the question of whether the notion itself has any real meaning has long been a subject of debate. The term is used in various ways: to refer to a particular aspect of an individual, or the individual in their entirety; to a scholar in many subjects (e.g. Isaac Newton or Leonardo da Vinci) or a scholar in a single subject (e.g., Albert Einstein or Stephen Hawking). Research into what causes genius and mastery is still in its early stages, and psychology offers relevant insights.
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Famous quotes containing the word genius:
“Milton, Madam, was a genius that could cut a Colossus from a rock; but he could not carve heads upon cherry-stones.”
—Samuel Johnson (1709–1784)
“The man who, from the beginning of his life, has been bathed at length in the soft atmosphere of a woman, in the smell of her hands, of her bosom, of her knees, of her hair, of her supple and floating clothes, ... has contracted from this contact a tender skin and a distinct accent, a kind of androgyny without which the harshest and most masculine genius remains, as far as perfection in art is concerned, an incomplete being.”
—Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867)
“But what we gain’d in Skill we lost in Strength.
Our Builders were with Want of Genius curst;
The second Temple was not like the first;
Till you, the best Vitruvius, come at length,
Our Beauties equal, but excel our Strength.”
—John Dryden (1631–1700)