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

I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered together at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone. – John F. Kennedy, in an address to Nobel Prize winners