Innovation was a curious thing. It never failed to amaze him.

And yet this place confirmed what they’d long known: that truly disruptive innovation rarely came from the expected sources. They’d had so much more luck investing in eccentric B and C students. The rationale was simple: Those heavily invested in the status quo had difficulty thinking outside of it — and were often tainted by it. Especially when success and peer approval beckoned. One did not accidentally graduate from top-tier schools. One strove to get in and to maintain grades once there, and to do that, one usually needed to be a master at conformity. To excel in all the accepted conventions.

No, the truly different thinkers often went unnoticed.

All geniuses are peculiarly inclined to solitude, to which they are driven as much by their difference from others as the inner wealth with which they are quipped, since among humans, among diamonds, only the uncommonly great are suited as solitaires: the ordinary ones must be set in clusters to produce any effect.

Geniuses are not always pleasant people.

Genius is seldom recognized for what it is: a great capacity for hard work.

Everyone is born a genius, but the process of living de-geniuses them.

All the geniuses I ever met were so just part of the time. To qualify, you only have to be great once, you know. Once when it matters.

Genius can only breathe freely in an atmosphere of freedom. Persons of genius are, ex vi termini,5 more individual than any other people — less capable, consequently, of fitting themselves, without hurtful compression, into any of the small number of moulds which society provides in order to save its members the trouble of forming their own character.

Those heavily invested in the status quo had difficulty thinking outside of it — and were often tainted by it.

genius accepts genius unconditionally

After all, greatness is not for everybody

Average people tend to think about merely maintaining the status quo; unsuccessful people think about simply surviving. Innovators and explorers think about what might be possible.

"I'm a misunderstood genius."
"What's misunderstood?"
"Nobody thinks I'm a genius."

A genius is the man who can do the average thing when everyone else around him is losing his mind.” — Napoleon

They’d had so much more luck investing in eccentric B and C students. The rationale was simple: Those heavily invested in the status quo had difficulty thinking outside of it — and were often tainted by it. Especially when success and peer approval beckoned. One did not accidentally graduate from top-tier schools. One strove to get in and to maintain grades once there, and to do that, one usually needed to be a master at conformity. To excel in all the accepted conventions.