Buffon_Georges Quotes (2 quotes)
“Le gιnie n'est qu'une longue patience”, a dit Buffon. Cela est bien incomplet. Le gιnie, c'est l'impatience dans les idιes et la patience dans les faits : une imagination vive et un jugement calme; quelque chose comme un liquide en ιbullition dans un vase qui reste toujours froid.
“Genius is just enduring patience,” said Buffon. This is far from complete. Genius is impatience in ideas and patience with the facts: a lively imagination and a calm judgment, rather like a liquid boiling in a cup that remains cold.
“Genius is just enduring patience,” said Buffon. This is far from complete. Genius is impatience in ideas and patience with the facts: a lively imagination and a calm judgment, rather like a liquid boiling in a cup that remains cold.
In Recueil d'uvres de Lιo Errera: Botanique Gιnιrale (1908), 198. Google translation by Webmaster.
Buffon, who, with all his theoretical ingenuity and extraordinary eloquence, I suspect had little actual information in the science on which he wrote so admirably For instance, he tells us that the cow sheds her horns every two years; a most palpable error. ... It is wonderful that Buffon who lived so much in the country at his noble seat should have fallen into such a blunder I suppose he has confounded the cow with the deer.
In The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. (1826), Vol. 3, 70, footnote.