Genius Similes. Frank J. Wilstach, comp. 1916. A Dictionary of Similes

Frank J. Wilstach, comp. A Dictionary of Similes. 1916.

Genius


Genius, like Shakespeare’s toad, may be out at the elbows and down at the heels, yet still wears a precious jewel in its head. —Hilary Bell	1
Men ov genius are like eagles, tha live on what tha kill, while men ov talents are like crows, tha live on what haz bin killed for them. —Josh Billings	2
Early genius, like early cabbage, does not head well. —Josh Billings	3
Genius, like humanity, rusts for want of use. —William Hazlitt	4
The advent of genius is like what the florists style the breaking of a seedling tulip into what we may call high-caste colors…. It is a surprise—there is nothing to account for it. —Oliver Wendell Holmes	5
The richest genius, like the most fertile soil, when uncultivated, shoots up into the rankest weeds; and instead of vines and olives for the pleasure and use of man, produces to its slothful owner the most abundant crop of poisons. —David Hume	6
The mind contemplates genius through the shades of age, as the eye surveys through artificial capacity. —Dr. Samuel Johnson	7
Genius, like a torch, shines less in the broad daylight of the present than in the light of the past. —J. Petit-Senn	8
Genius is the alarm-clock of sleeping centuries. —John Paul Richter	9
Genius, like fire, is a good servant, but a terrible master. —Lydia Huntley Sigourney	10
Genius as with fashion: all those are displeased at it, who are not able to follow it. —Thomas Warton	11