Samuel Johnson Genius Quotations

A man of genius has been seldom ruined but by himself.

It generally happens that assurance keeps an even pace with ability.

Curiosity is one of the most permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous intellect.

No greater felicity can genius attain than that of having purified intellectual pleasure, separated mirth from indecency, and wit from licentiousness

Around his tomb let Art and Genius weep / But hear his death, ye blockheads! hear and sleep.

No estimate is more in danger of erroneous calculations than those by which a man computes the force of his own genius.

Genius is that energy which collects, combines, amplifies, and animates.

The true genius is a mind of large general powers, accidentally determined to some particular direction.

Remember that nothing will supply the want of prudence, and that negligence and irregularity long continued will make knowledge useless, wit ridiculous, and genius contemptible.

It is good sense applied with diligence to what was at first a mere accident, and which by great application grew to be called, by the generality of mankind, a particular genius.

Genius, that power which constitutes a poet; that quality without which judgment is cold, and knowledge is inert; that energy which collects, combines, amplifies and animates.

Genius now and then produces a lucky trifle. We still read the Dove of Anacreon, and Sparrow of Catullus; and a writer naturally pleases himself with a performance which owes nothing to the subject.