To do easily what is difficult for others is the mark of talent. To do what is impossible for talent is the mark of genius. - Henri-Frédéric Amiel

I have never felt any inward assurance of genius, or any presentiment of glory or of happiness. I have never seen myself in imagination great or famous, or even a husband, a father, an influential citizen. This indifference to the future, this absolute self-distrust, are, no doubt, to be taken as signs. What dreams I have are all vague and indefinite; I ought not to live, for I am now scarcely capable of living.

Without passion, man is a mere latent force and possibility, like the flint which awaits the shock of the iron before it can give forth its spark.

Uncertainty is the refuge of hope. — Amiel's journal; the Journal intime of Henri-Frédéric Amiel 1890 (p.368)