Genius quotes

Explore the wisdom and brilliance of the greatest minds with our Genius category. Dive into the realm of intellect and be inspired by insightful quotes from renowned geniuses throughout history.

Regret isn't going to get me anywhere. It's like being obsessed with something. It doesn't bring you anywhere.

- Stanley Kubrick

One man writes a novel. One man writes a symphony. It is essential that one man makes a film.

- Stanley Kubrick

Nothing is as dangerous as a sure thing.

- Stanley Kubrick

No philosophy based on an incorrect view of the nature of man is likely to produce social good.

- Stanley Kubrick

Never say no to an idea - you never know how that idea will ignite another idea.

- Stanley Kubrick

Man isn't a noble savage, he's an ignoble savage. He is irrational, brutal, weak, silly, unable to be objective about anything where his own interests are involved-that about sums it up. I'm interested in the brutal and violent nature of man because it's a true picture of him. And any attempt to create social institutions on a false view of the nature of man is probably doomed to failure.

- Stanley Kubrick

In any case, once you're dealing on a nonverbal level, ambiguity is unavoidable. But it's the ambiguity of all art, of a fine piece of music or a painting - you don't need written instructions by the composer or painter accompanying such works to 'explain' them. 'Explaining' them contributes nothing but a superficial 'cultural' value which has no value except for critics and teachers who have to earn a living.

- Stanley Kubrick

If you really want to communicate something, even if it’s just an emotion or an attitude, let alone an idea, the least effective and least enjoyable way is directly. It only goes in about an inch. But if you can get people to the point where they have to think a moment what it is you’re getting at, and then discover it, the thrill of discovery goes right through the heart.

- Stanley Kubrick

If it can be written, or thought, it can be filmed.

- Stanley Kubrick

I’ve never been certain whether the moral of the Icarus story should only be, as is generally accepted, ‘don’t try to fly too high,’ or whether it might also be thought of as ‘forget the wax and feathers, and do a better job on the wings.

- Stanley Kubrick

I've got a peculiar weakness for criminals and artists. Neither takes life as it is. Any tragic story has to be in conflict with things as they are.

- Stanley Kubrick

I used and abused drugs and alcohol. When I stopped doing that it became a lot clearer that life goes from inside to giving as opposed to taking and destroying.

- Stanley Kubrick

I think the big mistake in schools is trying to teach children anything, and by using fear as the basic motivation. Fear of getting failing grades, fear of not staying with your class, etc. Interest can produce learning on a scale compared to fear as a nuclear explosion to a firecracker.

- Stanley Kubrick

I never learned anything at all in school and didn't read a book for pleasure until I was 19 years old.

- Stanley Kubrick

I love editing. I think I like it more than any other phase of film making. If I wanted to be frivolous, I might say that everything that precedes editing is merely a way of producing film to edit.

- Stanley Kubrick

I don't like doing interviews. There is always the problem of being misquoted or, what's even worse, of being quoted exactly.

- Stanley Kubrick

How could we possibly appreciate the Mona Lisa if Leonardo had written at the bottom of the canvas: 'The lady is smiling because she is hiding a secret from her lover.' This would shackle the viewer to reality, and I don't want this to happen to 2001.

- Stanley Kubrick

Everything has changed, but the process of telling a story has not changed. It's like cavemen sitting around the fire; somebody's going to tell the story. Somebody is drawing on the wall. You're communicating. You're trying to learn and teach at the same time. You're your own student and you're your own teacher, but the process is of the communicating.

- Stanley Kubrick

Everything has already been done. every story has been told every scene has been shot. it’s our job to do it one better.

- Stanley Kubrick

Chess teaches you to control the initial excitement you feel when you see something that looks good and it trains you to think objectively when you're in trouble.

- Stanley Kubrick

Bad films gave me the courage to try making a movie.

- Stanley Kubrick

Art consists of reshaping life but it does not create life, nor cause life.

- Stanley Kubrick

Anyone who has ever been privileged to direct a film also knows that, although it can be like trying to write 'War and Peace' in a bumper car in an amusement park, when you finally get it right, there are not many joys in life that can equal the feeling.

- Stanley Kubrick

A satirist is someone who has a very skeptical view of human nature, but who still has the optimism to make some sort of a joke out of it. However brutal that joke might be.

- Stanley Kubrick

A film is - or should be - more like music than like fiction. It should be a progression of moods and feelings. The theme, what's behind the emotion, the meaning, all that comes later.

- Stanley Kubrick

There's something in the human personality which resents things that are clear, and conversely, something which is attracted to puzzles, enigmas, and allegories.

- Stanley Kubrick

It's a mistake to confuse pity with love.

- Stanley Kubrick

I do not always know what I want, but I do know what I don't want.

- Stanley Kubrick

Be suspicious of people who have, or crave, power. Never, ever go near power. Don't become friends with anyone who has real power. It's dangerous.

- Stanley Kubrick

Either you care, or you don't. There's no in-between. And if you care, then go all of the way.

- Stanley Kubrick