"Genius" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Hazlitt's genius was of a heavier type. As an essayist his work breathes the spirit of an earlier age; but as a literary critic he is a leader, and displays an inwardness in his appreciation that makes him in a sense the model of the new age in ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... with Christ in God," the exceeding greatness of Christ's promises rises upon us in something of the fulness of their reality. Some may know the story of that German nobleman[12], whose life had been distinguished alike by genius and worldly distinctions, and by Christian holiness; and who, in the last morning of his life, when the dawn broke into his sick chamber, prayed that he might be supported to the window, and might look once again upon the rising ...
— The Christian Life - Its Course, Its Hindrances, And Its Helps • Thomas Arnold
... I ought to have told you. Papa is an extraordinary mechanical genius. You will say so, too, when you see his clock. It's nothing like so large, of course, but it's on the model of the famous clock at Strasbourg. Only think, he began it when I was eight years old; and (though I was ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... coarse peasant-like face was gradually lighted up by a smile of delight and enthusiasm over the progress of the human intellect. Oh, why is not man immortal? he thought. What is the good of the brain centres and convolutions, what is the good of sight, speech, self-consciousness, genius, if it is all destined to depart into the soil, and in the end to grow cold together with the earth's crust, and then for millions of years to fly with the earth round the sun with no meaning and no object? To do that there ...
— The Horse-Stealers and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... kind of memorability occur: The HULDIGUNGS-PREDIGT (Homage Sermon)—by a reverend Herr Quandt, chief Preacher there. Which would not be worth mentioning, except for this circumstance, that his Majesty exceedingly admired Quandt, and thought him a most Demosthenic genius, and the best of all the Germans. Quandt's text was in these words: "Thine are we, David, and on thy side, thou Son of Jesse; Peace, peace be unto thee, and peace be to thine helpers; for thy God helpeth thee." [First Chronicles, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... womanhood to the brink of the grave. And with you, mother, has it been the feeling of a moment? Ah! you ever loved him, when his name was never breathed by those lips. You loved him when you deemed he had forgotten you; when you pictured him to yourself in all the pride of health and genius, wanton and daring; and now, now that he comes to you penitent, perhaps dying, more like a remorseful spirit than a breathing being, and humbles himself before you, and appeals only to your mercy, ah! my mother, you cannot reject, you could not reject him, even ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... "H. DYSON (says Hearne) a person of a very strange, prying, and inquisitive genius, in the matter of books, as may appear from many libraries; there being books, chiefly in old English, almost in every library, that have belonged to him, with his name upon them." Peter Langtoft's Chronicles, vol. i., p. xiii. ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... time an inmate of the hall; for Sir Piers, though he afterwards abjured it, at that time professed the Catholic faith, and this Checkley officiated as his confessor and counsellor; as the partner of his pleasures, and the prompter of his iniquities. He was your father's evil genius." ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... fist into palm. "Superb!" he said, fiercely. "To cull fortune from misfortune, to turn loss into profit, that is to have genius." ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... tyrannies." Further, on the general question at issue, Paine remarked: "That men should take up arms, and spend their lives and fortunes, not to maintain their rights, but to maintain they have not rights, is an entirely new species of discovery and suited to the paradoxical genius of Mr. Burke." In reply to the noble passage: "The age of chivalry is gone ...," Paine shrewdly says: "In the rhapsody of his imagination he has discovered a world of windmills, and his sorrows are that there are ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... generation after generation of men are fascinated by his imagination. Discrepancies of race, of character, of institutions, of religion, of age, of the world, are forgotten in the common worship of his genius. In this universal tribute of gratitude, modern Europe vies with remote antiquity, the light Frenchman with the volatile Greek, the impassioned Italian with the enthusiastic German, the sturdy Englishman with the unconquerable Roman, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... "Natera is a genius!" Luis Cervantes said when they had returned to the hotel. "But Captain Solis is a nobody ...
— The Underdogs • Mariano Azuela
... came back, and Dolly made herself scarce. She had a positive genius for knowing just how far she could go ...
— A Campfire Girl's Happiness • Jane L. Stewart
... has real talent; and her mind has been trained, and her tastes directed, with affectionate skill and vigilance by her gifted brother. She has many accomplishments; but the only one I shall choose here to name is—music. She was one to sing and play before a man of the most fastidious taste and genius! I defy any man to hear the rich tones of Miss Aubrey's voice without feeling his heart moved. Music is with her a matter not of art but of feeling—of passionate feeling; but hark!—hush!—surely—yes, that is Miss Aubrey's voice—yes, that is her clear and brilliant touch; the ladies have ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... in an altered voice; "that thought is an insult. And even now, who knows if she really loves? does she know herself? She is enamored of genius, of the soul and intellect of that seller of verses, that literary quack; but she will study him, we shall all study him; and I know how to make the man's real character peep out from under that turtle-shell of fine manners,—we'll ...
— Modeste Mignon • Honore de Balzac
... Even the men of genius suffer from this impoverishment. When Goldsmith had written the finest English comedy since Shakespeare he did not know what to call it, and had to leave Johnson to write the label. I like to think that Shakespeare himself suffered from this sterility—that he, ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)
... much to be feared that more people in England nowadays associate the name of "Trilby" with the late Mr. Du Maurier than with Nodier, and that more still associate it with the notion of a hat than with either of the men of genius who used ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... am I for a bird? I believe no one will know me, and that is just as well; for now I am so fine that I shall myself refuse to know any one. Ho! This ought to give some ideas to that conceited Peacock family! I am a self-made man. I am an artist who knows how to adapt his materials. I am a genius. King Solomon himself will wonder at my glory. And as for the Eagle, King of the Birds, he will grow pale with envy. King of the Birds, indeed! It is now I who should rightfully be King. No other ever wore clothes so fine ...
— The Curious Book of Birds • Abbie Farwell Brown
... the dead of winter, and strike, like the hammer of Thor, upon his unwary foe, rudely disturbing his complacent dreams, was a conception of exceeding brilliancy, and it at once stamped Washington as a military genius of the first order. And with such an army to make such an attempt! Said one of the officers of the period in his memoirs: "An army without cavalry, partially provided with artillery, deficient in transportation for the little they had ...
— For Love of Country - A Story of Land and Sea in the Days of the Revolution • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... shone brightly. He had some little difficulty in getting seated, but he was elated to find that his invention answered all expectations. As he went further out he noticed a great buoy floating a long distance away. His evil genius suggested that it would be a good thing to paddle out to the buoy and back. Many men can drink champagne and show no sign, but few can drink success and remain sober. The eccentric airs assumed by noted authors prove the truth of this. De ...
— The Face And The Mask • Robert Barr
... A miracle! the hermit's daughters thus Will be remembered in the years to come. My pencil will suffice to scratch the lines Upon the wood: my memory will hold The lights, the tints, the golden atmosphere, The genius of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various
... dollars and a half—for a month's work when one is "jest nat'rally born to it!" And in addition, sleeping out without blankets and living the Lord knows how. There are moments when I am thankful that I was not "jest nat'rally born" a genius ...
— The People of the Abyss • Jack London
... to say, just the mid-point between bodily and spiritual nourishment. It acts agreeably, and at the same time, upon the senses and the thoughts. Its very fragrance gives a sort of delightful activity to the wits; it is a genius that lends wings to our fancy, and transports it to the ...
— An "Attic" Philosopher, Complete • Emile Souvestre
... the history of such works, in which genius seems to have pushed its achievements to a new limit. Their bursting out from nothing, and gradual evolution into substance and shape, cast on the mind a solemn influence. They come too near the fount of being to be followed up without our feeling the shadows which surround ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... great numbers. There were children, men, and women, the latter being animated traders, who, as regards a genius for bargaining, could only be compared ...
— Dick Sand - A Captain at Fifteen • Jules Verne
... our old towns, being almost entirely constructed of wood, were liable to periodic and devastating conflagrations, which fact suggested to that genius, William the Conqueror, the institution of Couvre-feu, or in its more popular form, Curfew, which rang at eight o'clock in the evening, when all lights were to be extinguished. The ringing of curfew has survived ...
— Our Homeland Churches and How to Study Them • Sidney Heath
... delaying, and it was not until after the indifferent dinner I got at the tavern where I stopped, that I found courage to go and present Lowell's letter to Hawthorne. I would almost have foregone meeting the weird genius only to have kept that letter, for it said certain infinitely precious things of me with such a sweetness, such a grace, as Lowell alone could give his praise. Years afterwards, when Hawthorne was dead, I met Mrs. Hawthorne, and told her of the pang I ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... the greatest conquerors of the Middle Ages. He was a soldier of genius but he cannot be called a truly great man. His vast empire speedily fell to pieces after his death. Since his day there has been no leader like him in that ...
— Famous Men of The Middle Ages • John H. Haaren, LL.D. and A. B. Poland, Ph.D.
... profane on such occasions, and the gasps of feminine delight at each new evidence of genius were the only sounds that might be heard even if you listened at the door, as, I admit, I was often mean enough to do. Yet the manifestations of the object of worship, as overheard by me, appeared sufficiently human and ordinary to be passed ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett
... did prove herself an adept in one respect. She had never sewed much, but she had an inventive genius in dress, and, when she once took up ...
— The Shoulders of Atlas - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... of the child should be encouraged and developed. It is the richest vein in the whole mental machinery of man, the faculty within which genius most frequently lurks, and where it can be most easily and permanently destroyed. Grown-up people should remember that an indiscreet answer to a childish question, or a snub administered to an inquiring mind, is often ...
— The Curse of Education • Harold E. Gorst
... So soon as you have talked that business over, write to me about it. [What is the business? Whither is the dusky Swan of Padua gone?] In all these three hundred miles I have found no human creature comparable to the Swan of Padua. I would willingly give ten cubic leagues of ground for a genius similar to yours. But I perceive I was about entreating you to return fast, and join me again,—while you are not yet arrived where your errand was. Make haste to arrive, then; to execute your commission, and fly back to me. ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... this low orb is lost a shining light. Useful, resplendent, and tho' transient, bright! For scarce has soaring genius reach'd the blaze Of fleeting life's meridian hour, Than Death around the naming meteor plays, And spreads its cypress o'er the short liv'd flower. The great projector of that grand design,[1] In time's remotest annals, long will shine; While ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 383, August 1, 1829 • Various
... Shakespeare's works, and Shakespeareana of all possible kinds, said, at the tercentenary meeting, that the idea originated with George Dawson, but perhaps the honour should be divided, as their mutual appreciation of the greatest poet whose genius has found utterance in our language is well known. The first practical step taken was the meeting, held (July 10, 1863) of gentlemen interested in the tercentenary, for the purpose of considering a proposal to celebrate that event by the formation of a Shakespearean library. The Rev. ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell
... jacobins is found an order of the old committee of public safety to pay 100,000 livres for printing the correspondence of that society. A journalist in Paris ventures to write thus: "Legislators, do not exhaust your strength and "genius in discovering that which has been done "before your time; give us the best government you "can; consider that the people of France were the "happiest and the longest so of any people; give us "the laws we have ...
— Historical Epochs of the French Revolution • H. Goudemetz
... as you have so deftly embedded in the Atalanta article that small remark on his acting. Your paper is pleasant and modest: most of R. L. Stevenson's admirers are inclined to lay it on far too thick. That he is a genius we all admit; but his genius, if fine, is limited. For example, he cannot paint (or at least he never has painted) a woman. No more could Fettes Douglas, skilful artist though he was in his own special line, ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson - a Record, an Estimate, and a Memorial • Alexander H. Japp
... before the flood; men of lofty stature and giant intellect, who, yielding to the control of fallen angels, devoted all their skill and knowledge to the exaltation of themselves; men whose wonderful works of art led the world to idolize their genius, but whose cruelty and evil inventions, defiling the earth and defacing the image of God, caused Him to blot them from the face of His creation. There are kings and generals who conquered nations, valiant ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... University, like those of the College de France, were packed to the doors and the effect of his message was enhanced by his eloquence of delivery and charm of personality. The pragmatic character of his philosophy appeals to the genius of the American people as is shown by the influence of the teaching of William James and John Dewey, whose point of view in ...
— Dreams • Henri Bergson
... exclusively to the sexuality. In reference to the manifestation of the anger trend, for instance, it may be not only a definitely conscious manifestation, but it may perhaps produce a crisis even in dream-thought. I am speaking of a case. A young boy at boarding school who was a musical genius had been very much bullied. He suffered a great deal from this, but did not retaliate until one night in the dormitory with eight boys while asleep, he being badgered by neighbors, got up while asleep and attacked these ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... people understood the riddle, and were not slow to profit by it. This house, although one of the best known, was not the only one of its kind to be found in Paris. Legrand was a man of business as well as a doctor, a better man of business than he was a doctor, and perceived, almost by a stroke of genius, how he might profit by the Revolution. To many a revolutionary leader gold was better than the head of an aristocrat, although by that curious twist of conscience which men can so easily contrive for themselves, direct bribery was not to be thought of. Dr. Legrand seemed to thoroughly ...
— The Light That Lures • Percy Brebner
... troubadour, greeted with a magnificent prize, was escorted to the royal palace amid a cortege of minstrelsy and chivalry; "thus manifesting to the world," says the marquis, "the superiority which God and nature have assigned to genius over dulness." [91] ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott
... "What is genius without opportunity?" said she. "What is a brave heart without the ability to do brave deeds? I give to thee many ...
— Hero Tales • James Baldwin
... self-consciousness, from any eccentricity of either temper or manner. 'Hers was a mind well balanced on a basis of good sense, sweetened by an affectionate heart, and regulated by fixed principles; so that she was to be distinguished from many other amiable and sensible women only by that peculiar genius which shines out clearly . . . in her works.'[208] Her tastes were as normal as her nature. She read English literature with eagerness, attracted by the eighteenth-century perfection of style—and still more by the return to nature in Cowper and ...
— Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters - A Family Record • William Austen-Leigh and Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh
... steady spirit in all his undertakings; and, although of a strong and impulsive will, I never knew it misdirected in his required pursuit of study. He was a most orderly scholar. The future ramifications of that noble genius were then closely shut in the seed, and greedily drinking in the moisture which made it afterwards burst forth so kindly into ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... toward the abyss and whom a secret horror unceasingly warned of the awful fate to come! I, who, if I had shed blood with these hands, could yet repeat that my heart was not guilty; that I was deceived, that it was not I who did it, but my destiny, my evil genius, some unknown being who dwelt within me, but who was not born there! I, do evil! For six months I had been engaged in that task, not a day had passed that I had not worked at that impious occupation, and I had at that moment the proof before my eyes. The man who had loved Brigitte, ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset
... brought all his ability to bear in preparing the Wonders of the Invisible World. It is marked throughout by his peculiar genius, and constructed with great ingenuity and elaboration; but it was "water spilt on the ground." So far as the end, for which it was designed, is regarded, it died before ...
— Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather - A Reply • Charles W. Upham
... individuals obtain. We might, indeed, have to qualify this doubt if the great fortunes of the world fell to the great geniuses. It would be impossible to determine what we ought to pay for a Shakespere, a Browning, a Newton, or a Cobden. Impossible, but fortunately unnecessary. For the man of genius is forced by his own cravings to give, and the only reward that he asks from society is to be let alone and have some quiet and fresh air. Nor is he in reality entitled, notwithstanding his services, to ask ...
— Liberalism • L. T. Hobhouse
... Forge's heat and ashes— O'er the Engine's iron head— Where the rapid Shuttle flashes, And the Spindle whirls its thread; There is Labour lowly tending Each requirement of the hour; There is genius still extending ...
— Words of Cheer for the Tempted, the Toiling, and the Sorrowing • T. S. Arthur
... provincials. Among the latter were the two Virginia regiments, nineteen hundred strong, under the command of Washington. Yet vast as were the preparations of the army, Forbes never would have seen the Ohio had it not been for the genius of Washington, although then but twenty-six years of age. The army took up its line of march from Philadelphia in July, and did not reach Raystown until the month of September, when they were still ninety miles distant from Fort du Quesne. It was Washington's earnest advice that the army ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... not doubt this, because he had seen something of the other's mathematical powers. He was not a fool at figures himself, but Bethune could solve by a flash of genius problems that cost him laborious calculation. It was strange that such a man should be content to make a very modest ...
— Brandon of the Engineers • Harold Bindloss
... most conceited dogs that I ever met with,' replied the King. 'He thinks he is a great genius, and perhaps he has some little talent for ...
— The Infernal Marriage • Benjamin Disraeli
... establish a dramatic movement upon the popular passions, as the ritual of religion is established in the emotions that surround birth and death and marriage, and it was only the coming of the unclassifiable, uncontrollable, capricious, uncompromising genius of J. M. Synge that altered the direction of the movement and made it individual, critical, and combative. If his had not, some other stone would have blocked up the old way, for the public mind of Ireland, stupefied ...
— The Unicorn from the Stars and Other Plays • William B. Yeats
... Though a genius—at any rate according to Brantome—it was now David Verne, instead of Lilla, who suffered from the feeling of inferiority. To hold her, he had only his music, and perhaps his bodily feebleness that excited her compassion. Yet this feebleness, profound, insurmountable, ...
— Sacrifice • Stephen French Whitman
... here and there a few feeble parties, who were incapable of checking our march upon Milan. Bonaparte's advance astonished and confounded the enemy, who thought of nothing but marching back the way he came, and renouncing the invasion of France. The bold genius which actuated Bonaparte did not inspire General Melas, the commander-in-chief of the Austrian forces. If Melas had had the firmness which ought to belong to the leader of an army—if he had compared the respective positions of the two parties—if he had considered that ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... honor. From it is derived the creditable love of independence which operates upon the manners of the people and the physical soil of the country so obviously, that the natural appearance of the one may be considered as an appropriate exponent of the moral condition of the other. Aided by the genius of a practical and impressive creed, whose simple grandeur gives elevation and dignity to its followers;—this class it is which, by affording employment, counsel, and example to many of the lower classes, brings peace and comfort ...
— Jane Sinclair; Or, The Fawn Of Springvale - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... securities. The first fall of Napoleon had thrown the continent open to English excursionists, anxious, let us suppose, to improve their minds by foreign travel; and I—the slight check of the "hundred days" removed, by the genius of Wellington, on the field of Waterloo—was now added ...
— The Room in the Dragon Volant • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... he did not discuss, in memorable phrase and trenchant, clever epigram. For he saw that I believed in him, worshipped whole-heartedly at his shrine of genius, and he gave me, in return, of his best. For the first time I saw what human language is for. I thought of Goethe at Weimar ... Wilde's clever ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... acquaintance of Coleman's, who knew him, said he was a capital fellow, but very odd—though in what the oddity consisted did not appear. Moreover, Coleman confirmed me in my preconceived idea, that Mullins's genius lay at present chiefly in the eating, drinking, and sleeping line—adding that, in his opinion, he bore a striking resemblance to those somewhat dissimilar articles, a muff and a spoon. In converse such as this, the time ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... is a spot fordable for horses, and, of course, fordable also for a cycler; but the prevailing mud and the chilliness of the morning combine to influence me to try another plan. A happy plan it seems at the moment, a credit to my inventive genius, and spiced with the seductive condiment of novelty, the stream is sufficiently narrow at one place to be overcome with a running jump; but people cannot take running jumps encumbered with a bicycle. The bicycle, however, can quickly and easily be taken ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... leave were unexpended still. He must think it over. He must have advice. So, as a first instalment of duty, he scrawled a recklessly affectionate letter, full of gratitude to her who had been his good genius and the guardian angel of his boy. He did not disguise his envy of the general merchant, whose vows of love could not have excelled in fervent expression the good wishes of the writer for the happiness ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... another Newton, or his equivalent. No ordinary man, and no succession of ordinary men, could have achieved it. I will not go the length of saying that what Newton did in a single life, might not have been done in successive steps by some of those who followed him, each singly inferior to him in genius. But even the least of those steps required a man of great intellectual superiority. Eminent men do not merely see the coming light from the hill-top, they mount on the hill-top and evoke it; and if no one had ever ascended ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... with choriambic fossils as well as later dolerite dykes, amid which the feline amenities of the Princess were illustrated with miraculous agility by Miss Agneesh Crannoge—compares favourably with the most ambitious enormities ever perpetrated by the genius of BAKST, DIAGHILEV, or even ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, December 15, 1920 • Various
... Of the genius of the inhabitants of the Philippines, and the peculiar punishments inflicted by the religious on the women who do not attend ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 28 of 55) • Various
... hopes, and to undeceive others. M. d'Argenson has strongly impressed me with the same opinion, and has succeeded in destroying all my respect for him." This is what the King said, according to my friend Quesnay, who, by the bye, was a great genius, as everybody said, and a very lively, agreeable man. He liked to chat with me about the country. I had been bred up there, and he used to set me a talking about the meadows of Normandy and Poitou, the wealth of the farmers, and the modes ...
— Memoirs And Historical Chronicles Of The Courts Of Europe - Marguerite de Valois, Madame de Pompadour, and Catherine de Medici • Various
... Genius but excites: That tasks the reason; this the soul delights. Talent from sober judgment takes its birth, And reconciles the pinion to the earth; Genius unsettles with desires the mind, Contented not ...
— The Verbalist • Thomas Embly Osmun, (AKA Alfred Ayres)
... whose unconquerable pride has ever proved a great impediment to the regeneration of the empire. Moslem talent was not equal to the exigencies that arose from the impolitic measures of Mahmoud. We find a parallel case in Russia. Had Peter trusted to Muscovite genius to form and command the troops which superseded the Strelitzes, Charles XII would have quartered ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... little genius of a Rebecca all you can!" she said that night. "I don't know what she may, or may not, come to, some day; I only wish she were ours! If you could have seen her clasp the flag tight in her arms and put her cheek against it, and watched the tears of feeling start in her eyes when I ...
— The Flag-raising • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... unusually muscular. His face bears a remarkable resemblance to the pictures of NUMA POMPILIUS; the benign smile of each is the same. His chin is round and full, although partially concealed by a slight beard; his nose, which is of a truly German outline, is marked by the 'dilated nostril of genius;' and his whole aspect is that of a thorough man of the world. I will continue my reminiscence by extracting verbatim a page or so from my imperfect, though as far as it goes, authentic diary. I ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, June 1844 - Volume 23, Number 6 • Various
... can pass for more subtle observers than others, and they find themselves sharper, in not giving credit to so many wonders." The love of truth does not consist in denying its existence, where so many persons of first-rate genius have found it; it does not depend on rendering obscure the light it sheds, nor in giving to the public Lives of Saints accompanied by a dry, bitter, and licentious criticism, calculated to throw doubt on all that is extraordinary in them, ...
— The Life and Legends of Saint Francis of Assisi • Father Candide Chalippe
... the effect of her beauty in this and that costume; so that she sported through the great grand halls and down the long aisles of the garden much like a bright-winged hummingbird, or a damsel-fly all green and gold. She was a genuine child of Italy,—full of feeling, spirit, and genius,—alive in every nerve to the finger-tips; and under the tropical sunshine of her mistress's favor she grew as an Italian rose-bush does, throwing its branches freakishly over everything in a wild labyrinth of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various
... her against a possible relapse. I save poor Mother—that is I rid her of the deadly Eliza—forever and a day! Despised, rejected, misunderstood, I nevertheless intervene, in its hour of dire need, as the good genius of the family; and you, dear little quaint thing, I take advantage of the precious psychological moment to whisk YOU off to Europe. We'll take Peg with us for a year's true culture; she wants a year's true culture ...
— The Whole Family - A Novel by Twelve Authors • William Dean Howells, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Mary Heaton Vorse, Mary Stewart Cutting, Elizabeth Jo
... they are what are called odd characters; but for that, are no more original, than what is called an odd genius, in his way, is. But, if original, whence came they? Or where did the novelist ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... of those mighty detectives whose proceedings form a school, as it were, and whose names will always remain inscribed on the judicial annals of Europe. He lacks the flashes of genius that illumine a Dupin, a Lecoq or a Holmlock Shears. But he possesses first-rate average qualities: perspicacity, sagacity, perseverance and even a certain amount of intuition. His greatest merit lies in the fact that he is absolutely ...
— The Blonde Lady - Being a Record of the Duel of Wits between Arsne Lupin and the English Detective • Maurice Leblanc
... devil-may-care young fellow. And all the time this quiet country house of yours is the centre of half the mischief in England, and the sporting squire the most astute secret-service man in Europe. Genius, my dear Von Bork—genius!" ...
— His Last Bow - An Epilogue of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... checking all their pretensions to be familiarly acquainted with their religion. But as the reformers pretended in some few particulars to encourage private judgment in the laity, the translation of the liturgy, as well as of the Scriptures, into the vulgar tongue, seemed more conformable to the genius of their sect; and this innovation, with the retrenching of prayers to saints, and of some superstitious ceremonies, was the chief difference between the old mass and the new liturgy. The parliament established this form of worship in all the churches, and ordained a uniformity ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part C. - From Henry VII. to Mary • David Hume
... soulmate, fast friend; amicus[Lat]; usque ad aras[Lat]; fidus Achates[Lat][obs3]; persona grata. acquaintance, neighbor, next-door neighbor, casual acquaintance, nodding acquaintance; wellwisher. favorer, fautor[obs3], patron, Mecaenas; tutelary saint, good genius, advocate, partisan, sympathizer; ally; friend in need &c. (auxiliary) 711. comrade, mate, companion, familiar, confrere, comrade, camarade[obs3], confidante, intimate; old crony, crony; chum; pal; buddy, bosom buddy; playfellow, playmate, childhood friend; bedfellow, bedmate; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... doubt that is so, Osgod, and heartily glad am I that you showed no genius for smith's work. Nature evidently intended you to damage casques and armour rather than to repair them. You have not got all my clothes with you," he added, as he looked round at ...
— Wulf the Saxon - A Story of the Norman Conquest • G. A. Henty
... the prophets that foretold it. Gloomy, fanatic, implacable and, it may be, mad, yet inspired at least by genius which itself, while madness, is a madness wholly divine, they heralded the future, they established the past. Abraham they drew from allegory, Moses from myth. They made them live, and so immortally that one survives in Islam, the other in words that are a law ...
— The Lords of the Ghostland - A History of the Ideal • Edgar Saltus
... quiet, well-mannered youth, invaluable just then to Mrs. Tallents Smallpeace, a woman never happy unless slightly leading a genius ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... the time lies in the fact that European, or more particularly Greek, civilization was spared to develop its own individuality. Had Xerxes succeeded, the paralyzing regime of an Asiatic despotism would have stifled the genius of the Greek people. Self-government would never have had its beginnings in Greece, and a subjugated Athens would never have produced the "Age of Pericles." In the two generations following Salamis, Athens made a greater original contribution ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott
... man of the greatest genius, and of the most various knowledge, being excited by the glory of the rhetorician Isocrates,[5] commenced teaching young men to speak, and joined philosophy with eloquence: so it is my design not to lay aside ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... Scotia's ancient bard, The genius of the past; Saw ghosts upon the fleecy clouds, And heard ...
— Withered Leaves from Memory's Garland • Abigail Stanley Hanna
... Men of genius have devoted some of their hours, and even governments have occasionally assisted, to render the people happier by song and dance. The Grecians had songs appropriated to the various trades. Songs of this nature would shorten the manufacturer's tedious task-work, and solace ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... developing a tact and self-command, a knowledge of finesse that he would not have believed possible in a rough and uneducated mountaineer. But the same quality, the wonderful perception, or rather intuition, that had made Wood a military genius, was serving him here, and though he perceived at once the drift of the Secretary's remarks and their intention, he preserved his coolness and contented himself for awhile with apparent ignorance. This, however, did not check the attack, and by and by Wood, too, began to deal in veiled ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... best part of the whole thing. It was all very well for Alice to talk about creeping and spying, but, if you considered it without bias, there was nothing degrading about it at all. It was an art. It took brains and a genius for disguise to make a man a successful creeper and spyer. You couldn't simply say to yourself, 'I will creep.' If you attempted to do it in your own person, you would be detected instantly. You had to be an adept at masking your personality. You had to ...
— The Man with Two Left Feet - and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... of Larry's who advised the convent in the first place. Angele was her maid, taken over from a princess—an Albanian one, or something Balkanic or volcanic. The old friend is a Marquise, and my opinion is that her genius lies in finding safe harbours for incubuses (is there such a word, or should it be "incubi?"). Heaven knows what explosive thing may happen if the high-powered Angele doesn't fancy her new ...
— The Lightning Conductor Discovers America • C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson and A. M. (Alice Muriel)
... meditating on the melancholy uncertainty of human life, when I contrasted the comforts, the pleasures, the pride of conscious usefulness and genius felt by this gentleman a short time since, with the agony which that trying and bitter hour brings to the stoutest and most callous heart—when it must quit this state of being for another, of which it knows so little, and over which ...
— A Voyage to the Moon • George Tucker
... was all compliance, and with a readiness so obliging and so well bred that I am sure he is his father's true son in manners, though there was no opportunity to discover whether the resemblance extended also to genius. He was not, however, cheered when he brought word that neither carriage nor ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... Jim Hooley about Dakota Joe. She did not wish to bother the director in any case. She had come to appreciate Hooley as, in a sense, a creative genius who should have his mind perfectly free of all other subjects—especially of annoying topics of thought—if he was to turn out a thoroughly good picture. Hooley fairly lived in the picture while the scenes were being shot. He must not be troubled by the knowledge of the possibility of Dakota ...
— Ruth Fielding in the Great Northwest - Or, The Indian Girl Star of the Movies • Alice B. Emerson
... upon the point in which, you must confess, my genius always stood unrivalled—acknowledge, if you are not dead to gratitude—acknowledge how often should you have gone supperless to bed in our bivouacs in the Peninsula, had it not been for the ingenuity of your humble servant—avow, that ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... twenty-four thousand men he marched boldly into Bohemia. The queen dispatched an army of forty thousand to meet him. The fierce encounter took place at Lowositz, near the banks of the Elbe. The military genius of Frederic prevailed, and the Austrians were repulsed, though the slaughter was about equal on each side, six thousand men, three thousand upon each side, being left in their blood. Frederic took ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott
... Some say the Genius so Cries 'Come!' to him that instantly must die. Bid them have patience; she ...
— The History of Troilus and Cressida • William Shakespeare [Craig edition]
... left hand—the victim of a cloth loom; and here a pallid-looking man, showing when he spoke or laughed slate-colored gums—a case of lead-poisoning, with a painful death as the inevitable result. And it seemed as if over all these cripples and sickly people the Genius of Work hovered as the black angel of Eastern stories, tracing on their foreheads with his brush—on this one mutilation, on this one an early death. Schrotter's observations and explanations placed the whole meeting in a different light to Wilhelm. The coarseness ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... to tell you about him; there doesn't seem to be anything to say. He is T. J. Haydon, a man who inherited both money and a genius for speculation. Not a plunger, you know; but one of those pursy, far-seeing fellows who always put their money on the right number and wait patiently until it wins. I might tell you that he was sentimental once in his life, ...
— That Girl Montana • Marah Ellis Ryan
... stratagem of hers, which was a strong proof of her wit and ingenuity, is said to have first opened her way to Caesar's heart, and her conquest advanced rapidly by the charms of her speech and person. The genius of Shakspeare has well depicted the power of her beauty at this time. He makes her to say, at a later period of life, when chagrined at the expected ...
— Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World • Anonymous
... reverence, of all mankind. The deities of a thousand groves and a thousand streams possessed, in peace, their local and respective influence; nor could the Romans who deprecated the wrath of the Tiber, deride the Egyptian who presented his offering to the beneficent genius of the Nile. The visible powers of nature, the planets, and the elements were the same throughout the universe. The invisible governors of the moral world were inevitably cast in a similar mould of fiction and allegory. Every virtue, and even vice, acquired its divine representative; every art and ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... soldier, of course." Margaret ran her eyes down the page, but found nothing sober enough to read aloud. "He seems to be a very wonderful person," she said, timidly. "Handsome, and a miracle of courage,—and a military genius; if war should come, Rita thinks he will be commander-in-chief of the Cuban army. You don't think it will really come to ...
— Margaret Montfort • Laura E. Richards
... their noisy haunts retire, And add your voices to the quire That sanctify the cottage fire With service meet; There seek the genius of your Sire, His ...
— Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland A.D. 1803 • Dorothy Wordsworth
... One of these men is genius to the other: And so of these, which is the naturall man, And which the spirit? Who deciphers them? S.Dromio. I Sir ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... congratulate you, my dear Enfield," observed Vacuum courteously, "on your genius for prophecy. At our last meeting, you foretold the near overthrow of Mr. Nixon and the Croker regime. The papers inform me that all came to pass within the two days following ...
— The Onlooker, Volume 1, Part 2 • Various
... to enough arithmetic to enable her to keep accounts, her art to the gift of singing a very lovely contralto by ear, and her notions of history bordered on the miraculous. She was obstinate, superstitious, and at times quick-tempered. But she had a positive genius for loving. That raised her into the first rank, and enabled her to bestow as much happiness on Prosper as if ...
— The Unknown Quantity - A Book of Romance and Some Half-Told Tales • Henry van Dyke
... exquisite sensibility. And of these three qualities, the last is the most important; since, after all that can be said on the utility or necessity of rules and precepts, it must be confessed that the merit of all works of genius must be determined by taste and sentiment. "Why do you so much admire the Helen of Zeuxis?" said one to Nicostratus. "You would not wonder why I so much admired it (replied the painter) if you had my eyes."—WARTON: Note to Pope's ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... is still uncertainty; you are about to appear at the States; you are about to show what sort of man you are; your eloquence and genius for business are the buckler and sword that will serve to defend you, if not to conquer with. The Bretons do not know you; and when they become acquainted with you your cause is won! Oh! let M. Colbert look to it well, for his lighter is as much exposed as yours ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... I liked her—she rested me so from literature. To myself literature was an irritation, a torment; but Greville Fane slumbered in the intellectual part of it like a Creole in a hammock. She was not a woman of genius, but her faculty was so special, so much a gift out of hand, that I have often wondered why she fell below that distinction. This was doubtless because the transaction, in her case, had remained incomplete; genius always pays for the gift, feels the debt, ...
— Greville Fane • Henry James
... long sweep. The cleverest of women cannot class with anything like precision the man who has stamped himself into her imagination. Betty knew that there were six men in the Senate who ranked as equals; their quiet epoch gave them little chance to discover latent genius other than for constructive legislation; nevertheless she arbitrarily conceived the Capitol to-day as the great setting for one man only; and the building and the man became one in her imagination henceforth. ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton
... be understood that none of these speeches were heard by Antony. Cicero had at this time become the acknowledged chief of the Republican party, having drifted into the position which Pompey had so long filled. Many of Caesar's friends, frightened by his death, or rather cowed by the absence of his genius, had found it safer to retreat from the Caesarean party, of which the Antonys, with Dolabella, the cutthroats and gladiators of the empire, had the command. Hirtius and Pansa, with Balbus and Oppius, were among them. They, ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope
... merchant's penalties? or shall not rather this ideal, feminine element of life, shall not Art, like woman, warm and inspire a sweeter, richer, more ideal, though it be a humbler home for us, with all the tenderer love and finer genius, now that man's enterprise is wrecked abroad? Shall we have no Music? Has the universal "panic" griped the singers' throats, that they can no longer vibrate with the passionate and perfect freedom indispensable to melody? It must not be. The soul is too rich ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... walls are hung with pictures by the Flemish masters, wherever space can be found for them. In the Cathedral, is the Descent from the Cross, by Rubens, which proves, what one might almost doubt who had only seen his pictures in the Louvre, that he was a true artist and a man of genius in the noblest sense of ...
— Letters of a Traveller - Notes of Things Seen in Europe and America • William Cullen Bryant
... Stewart had a genius for trade, but he had no gift for giving. The world needs a school for millionaires, so that, since they can not take their millions with them, they can learn to leave their money wisely and well. After an up-and-down—mostly down—career of a decade, the Business Palace was bought by ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard
... of the best races of his life that night. It was a trial of stamina and nerve. Lethe was primarily a sprinter, and the gelding, raised to his greatest effort by the genius of his rider, outfought her, outstayed her. As he flew down the moon-swept road, bright as at any noontime, Garrison knew success would be his, providing Sue kept her seat, her nerve, and ...
— Garrison's Finish - A Romance of the Race-Course • W. B. M. Ferguson
... skeptic: Once, nearly twenty centuries ago, a young preacher travelled and taught through the villages and by the wayside in an obscure oriental country. He addressed a subject race, insular in their prejudices, lacking in political genius and in artistic culture. He lived in days calculated to chill the most fervid religious enthusiasm. He was at first ignored and then hated by His own people; the religious leaders became His implacable foes. His work ended in apparent failure, ...
— Levels of Living - Essays on Everyday Ideals • Henry Frederick Cope
... Cardinal's friend, 'we entreat you to grant us the life of this poor man. His genius deserves some consideration; and he has just shown an almost superhuman amount of courage and dexterity. We do not know what may be the crimes for which your Holiness has seen fit to imprison him, but if they are pardonable we ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... for the invention of episodes in his stories. He says somewhere that when he sat down for the day's work, he never knew what he was going to write. He certainly was a literary genius. ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... that moment the wind came up with a sudden puff, and filled the sail which the genius of the General had added to the motive power of that "yot." It was just at the wrong moment, for Captain Tommy Conners and Commodore Gus Martin were having an argument over an extra oar they had found in the bottom of the boat, and they were rocking ...
— Harper's Young People, September 14, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various |
