What's the source of this quote about genius?

August 11, 2010 1:09 PM

"A genius is someone who has the same opinions as you, but expresses them better." Who said it?

I seem to vaguely remember Scott Adams saying something of the sort, but I'm not sure if he was quoting someone else. Also, I'm pretty sure he didn't say it exactly like that.

At any rate, I'm interested in finding out who said that, or something close to it, first.

posted by lore to Writing & Language (4 answers total)

"True wit is nature to advantage dress'd,/ What oft was thought, but ne'er so well express'd"? That's from Pope's Essay on Criticism.
posted by Bardolph at 1:14 PM on August 11, 2010

Well, there's this old AskMe question where I quoted my dad's quick test to determine if someone's intelligent: "whether a person, if asked to explain himself, is capable of doing so in different, clearer terms than he used the first time." That's a bit different, since you mentioned someone who can rephrase someone else's statement. Same idea, though.
posted by Jaltcoh at 1:35 PM on August 11, 2010 [1 favorite]

Kevin Solway, who runs this website on genius and masculinity, offered this quotation from himself on his own quotation page:

"Genius is not so much about new ideas as it is about clarity of ideas. Two people can have the same idea yet it will be genius in the one and mediocrity in the other."

The quotations on genius page can be found here.
posted by superlibby at 2:39 PM on August 11, 2010 [1 favorite]

Sounds kind of like Emerson - for instance, in Self-Reliance:
In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts: they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty.

He expresses a sentiment like that repeatedly - again, in "the Poet", he says The young man reveres men of genius, because, to speak truly, they are more himself than he is. They receive of the soul as he also receives, but they more.

Not sure if that's quite what you're looking for, but...
posted by mdn at 3:21 PM on August 11, 2010