Skip to content

Genius must be born, and never can be taught.

— John Dryden Epistle to Congreve (1693)

Another quote →

Source and credibility

Wikiquote does not flag this quote as disputed or misattributed.

Source: Epistle to Congreve (1693), l. 60
Work: Epistle to Congreve, 1693
Source quality: Precise citation Points to a specific work with a page, chapter, date or similar locator, so you can look it up.

More by John Dryden

Love taught him shame, and shame, with love at strife,
Soon taught the sweet civilities of life.

Cymon and Iphigenia (1700)

Pains of love be sweeter far
Than all other pleasures are.

Tyrannick Love (1669)

They say everything in the world is good for something.

The Spanish Friar (1681)

When beauty fires the blood, how love exalts the mind!

Fables, Ancient and Modern (1700)

Your ignorance is the mother of your devotion to me.

The Maiden Queen (1667)

A knockdown argument: 'tis but a word and a blow.

Amphitryon (1690)

Whistling to keep myself from being afraid.

Amphitryon (1690)

This is the porcelain clay of humankind.

Don Sebastian (1690)

All John Dryden quotes →

Topics

Intelligence

More quotes by John Dryden

Death in itself is nothing; but we fear
To be we know not what, we know not where.

Aureng-Zebe (1676)

Whate’er he did, was done with so much ease,
In him alone 'twas natural to please.

Absalom and Achitophel (1681)

Love conquers all, and we must yield to Love.

The Works of Virgil (1697)

What passion cannot Music raise and quell?

A Song for St. Cecilia's Day (1687)

Whatever is, is in its causes just.

Œdipus (1679)

All John Dryden quotes →

You may also like

Each of these private teachers who work for pay ... inculcates nothing else than these opinions of the multitude which they opine when they are assembled and calls this knowledge wisdom.

Socrates

Most intellectual people do not believe in God, but they fear him just the same.

Wilhelm Reich Philosophy : An Introduction to the Art of Wondering (2005)

Innocence in genius, and candor in power, are both noble qualities.

Anne Louise Germaine de Staël De l’Allemagne [Germany (1813)

Like every 'intellectual', a philosophy teacher is a petty bourgeois. When he opens his mouth, it is petty-bourgeois ideology that speaks: its resources and ruses are infinite.

Louis Althusser Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays (1968)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: John Dryden (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.