Men of genius are meteors destined to burn themselves out in lighting up their age. – Napoleon Bonaparte, Discours de Lyon, 1771

Common sense is instinct. Enough of it is genius. – George Bernard Shaw

Geniuses are the luckiest of mortals because what they must do is the same as what they most want to do. – W. H. Auden

Men of genius are often dull and inert in society; as the blazing meteor, when it descends to earth, is only a stone. – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Kavanagh: A Tale, 1849