Genius And Idiot Quotes & Sayings

Almost everyone is born a genius and buried an idiot. — Charles Bukowski

Let me add, however, that in every idea of genius or in every new human idea, or, more simply still, in every serious human idea born in anyone's brain, there is something that cannot possibly be conveyed to others, though you wrote volumes about it and spent thirty-five years in explaining your idea; something will always be left that will obstinately refuse to emerge from your head and that will remain with you for ever and you will die without having conveyed to anyone what is perhaps the most vital point of your idea. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Whether you are a genius or an idiot, a thief or, like me, a Zen priest who has cultivated the mind for 30 years - the mind anyway is subject to conditions. — Zoketsu Norman Fischer

There is a fine line between a genius and an idiot and that line is possibility. — Ni Mao

The guy who invented the first wheel was an idiot. The guy who invented the other three, he was a genius. — Sid Caesar

The truth is I've just never had any kind of plan at all for my career, which is probably not a very flattering thing to admit. I don't know that I'd ever planned to be in this situation. I'm still just an idiot, really really stupid. It's not like I'm now a genius because this has happened. I just got hugely lucky. — Ty Burrell

Man as an individual is a genius. But men in the mass form the headless monster, a great, brutish idiot that goes where prodded. — Charlie Chaplin

Any idiot can be complicated. It takes a genius to be simple. — Pete Seeger

He is an idiot," I said. "One who thinks he's a genius/ They're the most dangerous kind."
"No, the most dangerous kind are the ones with power," he said. — Aimee Carter

All people said to genius people which now are famous. "That's a bad idea", "Wow you must be an idiot to do that", "How can you devastate your talant with this comics and writting this??". But look now Stephen King (About the comics and the writting in his book "Writting Memoir and Craft he said that the teacher behaved with him like this way)... About the others, this are other people which this days are famous. — Deyth Banger

You certainly can't tell anything from the microscopic structure of the brain whether the person was an idiot or a genius. — Ashley Montagu

I don't think there's a less elitist thing on earth to do than to try and reach out and connect with another human being . . . And that's what the best writing does, that's what art does. It looks a reader in the eye, and it proceeds honestly with that reader, and nakedly. There is a compact there, a bond, a relationship, a union, a symbiosis . . . It's not about you. Whether you're a genius or an idiot savant. It's about the work. The work is more important than you. So it's not about back-claps and plaudits and "isn't that author smart." It's about, "this book really connected with me. And even though you, my friend, are very different from me, I'm lending it to you, because I think it will connect with you as well." Community. Across the eras. Between people who have never met, who will never meet, who are nonetheless bound in something together, in different ways. — Colin Fleming

I object to being called a chess genius, because I consider myself to be an all around genius, who just happens to play chess, which is rather different. A piece of garbage like Kasparov might be called a chess genius, but he is like an idiot savant, outside of chess he knows nothing. — Bobby Fischer

An idiot will do anything, no matter how stupid, because he is afraid of what everybody will think of him if he does nothing. A genius, on the other hand, is content to do nothing, no matter what people think, if he can't find anything worth doing. — Tom Upton

The fine line between genius and madness is a punch line. Duck, you idiot! — Brian Spellman

If people can't tell when I'm being an idiot and when I'm being a genius, perhaps they'll assume my blunders are brilliant political maneuvers. — Brandon Sanderson

Christ to Satan, we are cut from the same cloth, every one of us. And we have the choice to be in eternity anything we wish. Man or woman. Genius or idiot, and all between. Physical beauty means nothing. God sees the heart. Wealth is only a test of what we would do with it. It is a loan from God, as are our talents, a way to prove whether we will use them well or ill. The judgment is awaiting us. — Anne Perry

I was diagnosed with a severe temporal spatial deficit, a learning disability that means I have zero spatial relations skills. It was official: I was a genius trapped in an idiot's body. — Sloane Crosley

Few of the great tragedies of history were created by the village idiot, and many by the village genius. — Thomas Sowell

When I started out in the duck-call business, my college buddies would come in and say, 'Robertson, you have a college degree. What are you doing?' Then they drove away saying, 'What an idiot!' Thirty-five years later, they're saying, 'The sucker's a genius!' — Si Robertson

The genius who doesn't imagine is merely a brilliant idiot. — Kenneth Wilkinson

I'm all in favor of the democratic principle that one idiot is as good as one genius, but I draw the line when someone takes the next step and concludes that two idiots are better than one genius. — Leo Szilard

If the birth of a genius resembles that of an idiot, the end of a Havana Corona resembles that of a 5-cent cigar. — Sacha Guitry

Almost everybody is born a genius and buried an idiot. — Charles Bukowski

At the same moment, Kate and I drop our beverages and make a mad dash for the door. In the lobby, she pushes the elevator button furiously while I head for the stairs. Genius that I am, I figure I can take them three at a time. I'm almost six-feet - long legs. The only problem with this, of course, is that my office is on the fortieth floor.
Idiot. — Emma Chase

In the startup world, you're either a genius or an idiot. You're never just an ordinary guy trying to get through the day. — Marc Andreessen

One of the characters in our story, Gavril Ardalionovitch Ivolgin, belonged to the other category; he belonged to the category of "much cleverer" people; though head to toe he was infected with the desire to be original. But this class of person, as we have observed above, is far less happy than the first. The difficulty is that the intelligent "ordinary" man, even if he does imagine himself at times (and perhaps all his life) a person of genius and originality, nevertheless retains within his heart a little worm of doubt, which sometimes leads the intelligent man in the end to absolute despair. If he does yield in this belief, he is still completely poisoned with inward-driven vanity. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

But I still state unhesitatingly, that for pure, vacillating stupidity, for superb incompetence to command, for ignorance combined with bad judgment --in short, for the true talent for catastrophe -- Elphy Bey stood alone. Others abide our question, but Elphy outshines them all as the greatest military idiot of our own or any other day.
Only he could have permitted the First Afghan War and let it develop to such ruinous defeat. It was not easy: he started with a good army, a secure position, some excellent officers, a disorganized enemy, and repeated opportunities to save the situation. But Elphy, with the touch of true genius, swept aside these obstacles with unerring precision, and out of order wrought complete chaos. We shall not, with luck, look upon his like again. — George MacDonald Fraser

Quick note here: if this crush-slash-swooning stuff is hard for you to stomach; if you've never had a similar experience, then you should come to grips with the fact that you've got a TV dinner for a heart and might want to consider climbing inside a microwave and turning it on high for at least an hour, which if you do consider only goes to show what kind of idiot you truly are because microwaves are way too small for anyone, let alone you, to climb into. — Mark Z. Danielewski

He's no idiot, in fact he's a genius... and that's as far from an idiot as you can get without reaching madness. — Mike Judge

Independent thinkers are usually geniuses or idiots and at times it's hard to tell which. — James Cook

I didn't care if he was a genius or a fucking idiot, he was rotting away, and it wasn't fun to watch. — Anthony Kiedis

The ultimate trick is to convince, persuade. Every single person out there is an idiot, but collectively they're a genius. — Billy Wilder

Goya's savage verve, his harsh, brutal genius, captivated Des Esseintes. On the other hand, the universal admiration his works had won rather put him off, and for years he had refrained from framing them, for fear that if he hung them up, the first idiot who saw them would might feel obliged to dishonour them with a few inanities and go into stereotyped ecstasies over them. — Joris-Karl Huysmans

Yes, failure is part of the mix, he says, but it is a means, not an end. If you fail repeatedly, and in the same manner, you're an idiot, not a genius. — Eric Weiner

People can be teachers and idiots; they can be philosophers and idiots; they can be politicians and idiots ... in fact I think they have to be ... a genius can be an idiot. The world is largely run for and by idiots; it is no great handicap in life and in certain areas is actually a distinct advantage and even a prerequisite for advancement. — Iain Banks

Give me a smart idiot over a stupid genius any day. — Samuel Goldwyn

One hundred idiots make idiotic plans and carry them out. All but one justly fail. The hundredth idiot, whose plan succeeded through pure luck, is immediately convinced he's a genius. — Iain M. Banks