It seldom happens that a premature shoot of genius ever arrives at maturity.

Vain hopes are like certain dreams of those who wake.

It seldom happens that a premature shoot of genius ever arrives at maturity.

Men, even when alone, lighten their labors by song, however rude it may be.

In almost everything, experience is more valuable than precept.

While we are making up our minds as to when we shall begin. the opportunity is lost.

To swear, except when necessary, is becoming to an honorable man.

Forbidden pleasures alone are loved immoderately; when lawful, they do not excite desire.

Whilst we deliberate how to begin a thing, it grows too late to begin it.

Our minds are like our stomaches; they are whetted by the change of their food, and variety supplies both with fresh appetite.

Nothing is more dangerous to men than a sudden change of fortune.

The pretended admission of a fault on our part creates an excellent impression.

The perfection of art is to conceal art.

That which prematurely arrives at perfection soon perishes.

Those who wish to appear wise among fools, among the wise seem foolish.

It is fitting that a liar should be a man of good memory.

We must form our minds by reading deep rather than wide.

A laugh costs too much when bought at the expense of virtue.

The prosperous can not easily form a right idea of misery.

Everything that has a beginning comes to an end.

A laugh, if purchased at the expense of propriety, costs too much.

Though ambition in itself is a vice, yet it is often the parent of virtues.

While we are examining into everything we sometimes find truth where we least expected it.

God, that all-powerful Creator of nature and architect of the world, has impressed man with no character so proper to distinguish him from other animals, as by the faculty of speech.

We excuse our sloth under the pretext of difficulty.

Fear of the future is worse than one's present fortune.

For it would have been better that man should have been born dumb, nay, void of all reason, rather than that he should employ the gifts of Providence to the destruction of his neighbor.

Where evil habits are once settled, they are more easily broken than mended.

The gifts of nature are infinite in their variety, and mind differs from mind almost as much as body from body.

He who speaks evil only differs from his who does evil in that he lacks opportunity.

Let schoolmasters puzzle their brain, With grammar, and nonsense, and learning, Good liquor, I stoutly maintain, Gives genius a better discerning.

Clinton's fakery was so deft and deeply ingrained that it was impossible to tell where it ended and the real Bill Clinton began. This constituted a kind of political genius.

Genius is not a possession of the limited few, but exists in some degree in everyone. Where there is natural growth, a full and free play of faculties, genius will manifest itself.

I make no claim to being a business genius. You can make so much money in this business that it loses its value.

Genius is an infinite capacity for taking pains.

Doorman - a genius who can open the door of your car with one hand, help you in with the other, and still have one left for the tip.

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

I am a genius. Then it amused me to keep saying so, but now it does not. I expected to be happy sometime. Now I know I shall never be.

Churchill was one of the few men I have met who even in the flesh give me the impression of genius. George Bernard Shaw is another. It is amusing to know that each thinks the other is overrated.

The person who figures out how to harness the collective genius of his or her organization is going to blow the competition away.

The genius of the economic machine is in its ability to convert these indulgences into profitability. It converts desire into attention, a grip on our eyeballs and eardrums, which in turn can be marketed to advertisers.

Genius is essentially creative; it bears the stamp of the individual who possesses it.

It's a pity one can't imagine what one can't compare to anything. Genius is an African who dreams up snow.

Better beware of notions like genius and inspiration; they are a sort of magic wand and should be used sparingly by anybody who wants to see things clearly.

The dread of criticism is the death of genius.

Anybody can put things together that belong together. to put things together that don't go together, and make it work, that takes genius like Mozart's. Yet he is presented in the play Amadeus as a kind of silly boy whom the gods loved.

God gives talent. Work transforms talent into genius.

The modes of expression of men of genius differ as much as their souls, and it is impossible to say that in some among them, drawing and color are better or worse than in others.

The eye of genius has always a plaintive expression, and its natural language is pathos.