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Genius is 99% perspiration and 1% inspiration.
Sep 24, 2025
Once the inspiration comes, that directs where the perspiration goes.
Genius defined: of inspiration 1% percent, of perspiration, 99%.
God enabled me to so agonize in prayer that I was quite wet with perspiration, though in the shade and the cool wind. My soul was drawn out very much from the world, for multitudes of souls.
Invention is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration
Sports are 90% inspiration and 10% perspiration.
Innovation = Inspiration + Perspiration + Perseverance.
Genius is not inspired. Inspiration is perspiration.
Talent alone is not enough. I believe that a really good gymnast is 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration.
When this love, the heavenly gift of Nature, appears in the heart, it removes all causes of excitation from the system and cools it down to a perfectly normal state; and invigorating the vital powers, expels all foreign matters- the germs of diseases-by natural ways (perspiration and so forth). It thereby makes man perfectly healthy in body and mind, And enables him to understand properly the guidance of Nature.
His genius he was quite content in one brief sentence to define; Of inspiration one percent, of perspiration, ninety nine.
Inspiration without perspiration leads to frustration and stagnation.
Gardening requires lots of water... most of it in the form of perspiration.
The next phase and this is part of what I'm interested in doing after I get out of the presidency is to make sure that I'm working with that next generation so that they understand you can't just rely on inspiration. There's a little perspiration involved in bringing about change too. That you have to be organized, that you have to vote even when it's not exciting.
Excellence isn't achieved without inspiration and perspiration. You've got to have both.
Genius is 1 percent inspiration, 99 percent perspiration.
Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration. As a result, a genius is often a talented person who has simply done all of his homework.
Perspiration is the best form of differentiation, especially in the creative world.
To create great work, here's how you must spend your time: 1% Inspiration 9% Perspiration 90% Justification
Persistence isn't very glamorous. If genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration, then as a culture we tend to lionize the one percent. We love its flash and dazzle. But great power lies in the other ninety-nine percent.
Honey comes out of the air At early dawn the leaves of trees are found bedewed with honey. Whether this is the perspiration of the sky or a sort of saliva of the stars, or the moisture of the air purging itself, nevertheless it brings with it the great pleasure of its heavenly nature. It is always of the best quality when it is stored in the best flowers.
Thomas Edison had great visions (for lights, music players, movies, etc.) but he knew they didn't count until he could make them work. His statement that creativity is 99% perspiration makes that point. Consider how much time he spent trying to make a synthetic rubber material for tires and never stopped trying but he never succeeded.
...there must be a sequence to learning, that perseverance and a certain measure of perspiration are indispensable, that individual pleasures must frequently be submerged in the interests of group cohesion, and that learning to be critical and to think conceptually and rigorously do not come easily to the young but are hard-fought victories.
Invention is 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration. Thomas Edison I don't design clothes, I design dreams.
In Roslyn, Pennsylvania, we started our real-life family circus. They provided the inspiration for my cartoons. I provided the perspiration.
People often say that writing is ten percent inspiration and ninety percent perspiration. This is nonsense, of course. It's pretty much one hundred percent caffeine.
Success is 90% perspiration and 10% inspiration!
The Deliverator belongs to an elite order, a hallow subcategory. He's got esprit up to here. Right now, he is preparing to carry out his third mission of the night. His uniform is black as activated charcoal, filtering the very light out of the air. A bullet will bounce off its arachnofiber weave like a wren hitting a patio door, but excess perspiration wafts through it like a breeze through a freshly napalmed forest. Where his body has bony extremities, the suit has sintered armorgel: feels like gritty jello, protects like a stack of telephone books.
Most, if not all, creativity is born out of perspiration rather than inspiration.
Here I am in the garden laughing an old woman with heavy breasts and a nicely mapped face how did this happen well that's who I wanted to be at last a woman in the old style sitting stout thighs apart under a big skirt grandchild sliding on off my lap a pleasant summer perspiration that's my old man across the yard he's talking to the meter reader he's telling him the world's sad story how electricity is oil or uranium and so forth I tell my grandson run over to your grandpa ask him to sit beside me for a minute I am suddenly exhausted by my desire to kiss his sweet explaining lips.
Being busy does not always mean real work.
We get new ideas from God every hour of our day when we put our trust in Him -- but we have to follow that inspiration up with perspiration -- we have to work to prove our faith. Remember that the bee that hangs around the hive never gets any honey.
Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration.
The first cup moistens my lips and throat; The second cup breaks my loneliness; The third cup searches my barren entrail but to find therein some thousand volumes of odd ideographs; The fourth cup raises a slight perspiration-all the wrongs of life pass out through my pores; At the fifth cup I am purified; The sixth cup calls me to the realms of the immortals. The seventh cup-ah, but I could take no more! I only feel the breath of the cool wind that raises in my sleeves. Where is Elysium? Let me ride on this sweet breeze and waft away thither.
In youth, we clothe ourselves with rainbows, with hope & love, & go as brave as the zodiack. In age we put out another sort of perspiration; gout, fever, rheumatism, caprice, doubt, fretting, and avarice.
Success comes from aspiration, desperation, perspiration, and inspiration!
Success is the good fortune that comes from aspiration, desperation, perspiration,and inspiration.
Failure is important because the first time you win (or lose), it could be luck, it could be timing, or it could be talent. It's only after you fail once or twice and learn to rely equally on thought, analysis, and anticipation-in addition to speed, talent, and execution-that you can really call yourself an entrepreneur ... In the long run, it's mind over muscle, strategy over strength, and a healthy perspective-not just a lot of perspiration-that make someone a real success in his or her business and in the equally important rest of his or her life.
Dancing is an excellent amusement for young people, especially for those of sedentary occupations. Its excellence consists in exciting a cheerfulness of the mind, highly essential to health; in bracing the muscles of the body, and in producing copious perspiration.....The body must perspire, or must be out of order.
Candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker.
It is not the weariness of mortality, but the strength of divinity, which we have to recognize in all mighty things; and that is just what we now never recognize, but think that we are to do great things by help of iron bars and perspiration. Alas! we shall do nothing that way but lose some pounds of our own weight.
Laughter brightens the eye, increases the perspiration, expands the chest, forces the poisoned air from the least-used cells, and tends to restore that exquisite poise or balance which we call health.
That adage about genius being 5 percent inspiration and 95 perspiration - it's true.
Tomorrow's leaders not only have dreams, goals and plans. They are willing to work hard and to take responsibility for turning their plans into energy, perspiration and effort. They don't sit back and wait for someone else to turn their dreams into action. They take charge of executing their own plan.
Everyone is shy - it is the inborn modesty that makes us able to live in harmony with other creatures and our fellows. Achievement comes not by denying shyness but, occasionally, by setting it aside and letting pride and perspiration come first.
Being busy does not always mean real work. The object of all work is production or accomplishment and to either of these ends there must be forethought, system, planning, intelligence, and honest purpose, as well as perspiration. Seeming to do is not doing.
None of my inventions came by accident. I see a worthwhile need to be met and I make trial after trial until it comes. What it boils down to is one per cent inspiration and ninety-nine per cent perspiration.
Our greatest weakness lies in giving up.
Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.
Patience, persistence and perspiration make an unbeatable combination for success.