Quote

Talent is full of thoughts, Genius is thought. Talent is a cistern, Genius a fountain.

Edwin Percy Whipple

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Edwin Percy Whipple
Age: 67 †
Born: 1819
Born: March 8
Died: 1886
Died: June 16
Author
Essayist
Journalist
Literary Critic
Writer
Gloucester
Massachusetts
Talent
Full
Thought
Cistern
Fountain
Genius
Thoughts

More quotes by Edwin Percy Whipple

Image
As men neither fear nor respect what has been made contemptible, all honor to him who makes oppression laughable as well as detestable. Armies cannot protect it then and walls which have remained impenetrable to cannon have fallen before a roar of laughter or a hiss of contempt.
Edwin Percy Whipple
Image
Lord Chatham and Napoleon were ns much actors as Garrick or Talma. Now, an imposing air should always be taken as evidence of imposition. Dignity is often a veil between us and the real truth of things.
Edwin Percy Whipple
Image
Even in social life, it is persistency which attracts confidence, more than talents and accomplishments.
Edwin Percy Whipple
Image
Humor, warm and all-embracing as the sunshine, bathes its objects in a genial and abiding light.
Edwin Percy Whipple
Image
The familiar writer is apt to be his own satirist. Out of his own mouth is he judged.
Edwin Percy Whipple
Image
Character is the spiritual body of the person, and represents the individualization of vital experience, the conversion of unconscious things into self-conscious men.
Edwin Percy Whipple
Image
Heroism is no extempore work of transient impulse--a rocket rushing fretfully up to disturb the darkness by which, after a moment's insulting radiance, it is ruthlessly swallowed up,--but a steady fire, which darts forth tongues of flame. It is no sparkling epigram of action, but a luminous epic of character.
Edwin Percy Whipple
Image
Genius is not a single power, but a combination of great powers. It reasons, but it is not reasoning it judges, but it is not judgment imagines, but it is not imagination it feels deeply and fiercely, but it is not passion. It is neither, because it is all.
Edwin Percy Whipple
Image
Some men find happiness in gluttony and in drunkenness, but no delicate viands can touch their taste with the thrill of pleasure, and what generosity there is in wine steadily refuses to impart its glow to their shriveled hearts.
Edwin Percy Whipple
Image
The minister's brain is often the poor-box of the church.
Edwin Percy Whipple
Image
Genius may be almost defined as the faculty of acquiring poverty.
Edwin Percy Whipple
Image
We like the fine extravagance of that philosopher who declared that no man was as rich as all men ought to be.
Edwin Percy Whipple
Image
Sydney Smith playfully says that common sense was invented by Socrates, that philosopher having been one of its most conspicuous exemplars in conducting the contest of practical sagacity against stupid prejudice and illusory beliefs.
Edwin Percy Whipple
Image
Knowledge, like religion, must be experienced in order to be known.
Edwin Percy Whipple
Image
Nature does not capriciously scatter her secrets as golden gifts to lazy pets and luxurious darlings, but imposes tasks when she presents opportunities, and uplifts him whom she would inform. The apple that she drops at the feet of Newton is but a coy invitation to follow her to the stars.
Edwin Percy Whipple
Image
No education deserves the name unless it develops thought, unless it pierces down to the mysterious spiritual principle of mind, and starts that into activity and growth.
Edwin Percy Whipple
Image
Nothing really succeeds which is not based on reality sham, in a large sense, is never successful. In the life of the individual, as in the more comprehensive life of the State, pretension is nothing and power is everything.
Edwin Percy Whipple
Image
What a man does with his wealth depends upon his idea of happiness. Those who draw prizes in life are apt to spend tastelessly, if not viciously not knowing that it requires as much talent to spend as to make.
Edwin Percy Whipple
Image
Sin, every day, takes out a patent for some new invention.
Edwin Percy Whipple
Image
An epigram often flashes light into regions where reason shines but dimly.
Edwin Percy Whipple