"There iz this difference between genius and common sense in a fox: Common sense iz governed bi circumstances, but circumstances iz governed by genius."

"Now, these men weren’t idiots. They were geniuses who paid a high price for their genius because the rest of their thinking was other-world. A genius is someone who travels to truth by an unexpected path. Unfortunately, unexpected paths lead to disaster in everyday life."

"The wild force of genius has oft been fated by nature to be finally overcome by quiet strength.… The volcano sends up its red bolt with terrific force, as if it would strike the stars; but the calm, resistless hand of gravitation seizes it, and brings it to the earth."

"Le génie n’est que l’enfance retrouvée à volonté."

"As diamond cuts diamond, and one hone smooths a second, all the parts of intellect are whetstones to each other; and genius, which is but the result of their mutual sharpening, is character too."

"Doing easily what others find it difficult is talent; doing what is impossible for talent is genius."

"Nullum magnum ingenium sine mixtura dementia."

"The greatest thing by far is to have a command of metaphor. This alone cannot be imparted by another; it is the mark of genius, for to make good metaphors implies an eye for resemblances."

"Gott denkt in den Genies, träumt in den Dichtern und schläft in den übrigen Menschen."

"We may say that there are two outstanding human types, one the saint and the other the genius. Religion has tended to recognise only the first of these and to look askance at the other. … If we accept genius as a form of God's self-expression equally with holiness, we must go on to question the assumption that humility is the basic virtue."

"Genius is but the free and harmonious play of all the faculties of a human being."

"A genius is one who can do anything except make a living."

"Genius is patience."

"Many of these great natural geniuses, that were never disciplined and broken by rules of art, are to be found among the ancients, and in particular among those of the more Eastern parts of the world. Homer has innumerable flights that Virgil was not able to reach, and in the Old Testament we find several passages more elevated and sublime than any in Homer. At the same time that we allow a greater and more daring genius to the ancients, we must own that the greatest of them very much failed in, or, if you will, that they were much above the nicety and correctness of the moderns."

"Among great geniuses those few draw the admiration of all the world upon them, and stand up as the prodigies of mankind, who, by the mere strength of natural parts, and without any assistance of art or learning, have produced works that were the delight of their own times and the wonder of posterity. There appears something nobly wild and extravagant in these great natural geniuses, that is infinitely more beautiful than all turn and polishing of what the French call a bel esprit, by which they would express a genius refined by conversation, reflection, and the reading of the most polite authors. The greatest genius which runs through the arts and sciences takes a kind of tincture from them and falls unavoidably into imitation."

"Like glimpses of forgotten dreams."

"Seeing, I saw not, hearing not, I heard. Tho', if I saw not, yet they told me all So often that I spake as having seen."

"The dream Dreamed by a happy man, when the dark East, Unseen, is brightening to his bridal morn."

"In the world of dreams, I have chosen my part. To sleep for a season and hear no word Of true love's truth or of light love's art, Only the song of a secret bird."

"Those dreams, that on the silent night intrude, And with false flitting shades our minds delude, Jove never sends us downward from the skies; Nor can they from infernal mansions rise; But are all mere productions of the brain, And fools consult interpreters in vain."

"In an ocean of dreams without a sound."

"Across the silent stream Where the dream-shadows go, From the dim blue Hill of Dream I have heard the west wind blow."

"Ah, the strange, sweet, lonely delight Of the Valleys of Dream."

"If I may trust the flattering truth of sleep, My dreams presage some joyful news at hand: My bosom's lord sits lightly in his throne; And all this day an unaccustom'd spirit Lifts me above the ground with cheerful thoughts."

"Sometime she driveth o'er a soldier's neck, And then dreams he of cutting foreign throats, Of breaches, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades, Of healths five-fathom deep."

"I talk of dreams, Which are the children of an idle brain, Begot of nothing but vain fantasy, Which is as thin of substance as the air And more inconstant than the wind."

"For never yet one hour in his bed Have I enjoyed the golden dew of sleep, But have been waked by his timorous dreams."

"Oh! I have pass'd a miserable night, So full of ugly sights, of ghastly dreams, That, as I am a Christian faithful man, I would not spend another such a night, Though 'twere to buy a world of happy days."

"This is the rarest dream that e'er dull sleep Did mock sad fools withal."

"I have had a most rare vision. I have had a dream, past the wit of man to say what dream it was."

"There is some ill a-brewing towards my rest, For I did dream of money-bags to-night."

"Thou hast beat me out Twelve several times, and I have nightly since Dreamt of encounters 'twixt thyself and me."

"I'll dream no more—by manly mind Not even in sleep is well resigned. My midnight orisons said o'er, I'll turn to rest and dream no more."

"Some must delve when the dawn is nigh; Some must toil when the noonday beams; But when night comes, and the soft winds sigh, Every man is a King of Dreams."

"O Brethren, weep to-day, The silent God hath quenched my Torch's ray, And the vain dream hath flown."

"We must discipline ourselves to convert dreams into plans, and plans into goals, and goals into those small daily activities that will lead us, one sure step at a time, toward a better future."

"This morn, as sleeping in my bed I lay, I dreamt (and morning dreams come true they say)."

"As a dream when one awaketh."

"Till their own dreams at length deceive 'em And oft repeating, they believe 'em."

"Yet eat in dreams, the custard of the day."

"Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before."

"O God! Can I not save One from the pitiless wave? Is all that we see or seem But a dream within a dream?"

"You are not wrong, who deem That my days have been a dream; Yet if hope has flown away In a night, or in a day, In a vision, or in none, Is it therefore the less gone? All that we see or seem Is but a dream within a dream."

"That holy dream—that holy dream, While all the world were chiding, Hath cheered me as a lovely beam A lonely spirit guiding."

"What was your dream? It seemed to me that a woman in white raiment, graceful and fair to look upon, came towards me and calling me by name said: On the third day, Socrates, thou shall reach the coast of fertile Phthia."

"Dreams, which, beneath the hov'ring shades of night, Sport with the ever-restless minds of men, Descend not from the gods. Each busy brain Creates its own."

"Namque sub Aurora jam dormitante lucerna Somnia quo cerni tempore vera solent."

"I am weary of planning and toiling In the crowded hives of men; Heart weary of building and spoiling And spoiling and building again; And I long for the dear old river Where I dreamed my youth away; For a dreamer lives forever, And a toiler dies in a day."

"A thousand creeds and battle cries, A thousand warring social schemes, A thousand new moralities And twenty thousand, thousand dreams."

"Oh! that a dream so sweet, so long enjoy'd, Should be so sadly, cruelly destroy'd!"