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Genius needs the curb as often as the spur.

δεῖ γὰρ αὐτοῖς ὡς κέντρου πολλάκις οὕτω δὲ καὶ χαλινοῦ.

Original text (Ancient Greek)

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Intelligence

More quotes by Longinus

Utterances which appear inspired are often not sublime but merely childish.

For art is only perfect when it looks like nature and Nature succeeds only when she conceals latent art.

In ordinary life, nothing is truly great which it is great to despise; wealth, honor, reputation, absolute power — anything in short which has a lot of external trappings.

Those whose thoughts and habits all their lives are trivial and servile cannot possibly produce anything admirable or worthy of eternity. Words will be great if thoughts are weighty.

It is our nature to be elevated and exalted by true sublimity. Filled with joy and pride, we come to believe we have created what we have only heard.

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

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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)

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