a lungful of joys

“… all great work is the fruit of patience and perseverance, combined with tenacious concentration on a subject over a period of months or even years. Many illustrious scholars have confirmed this when questioned about the secret of their creations. Newton stated that he arrived at the sovereign law of universal attraction only by constant thinking about the same problem. According to one of his sons, Darwin achieved such a high degree of concentration on the biological facts related to the principle of evolution that for many years he systematically deprived himself of all reading and contemplation unrelated to the goal of his thoughts. Buffon said unreservedly, “Genius is simply patience carried to the extreme.” To those who asked how he achieved fame he replied: “By spending forty years of my life bent over my writing desk.” As a final example, it is widely known that Mayer, the genius who discovered the principle of energy conservation and transformation, dedicated his entire life to this concept. Thus, it is clear beyond doubt that great scientific undertakings require intellectual vigor, as well as severe discipline of the will and continuous subordination of all one’s mental powers to an object of study. Harm is caused unconsciously by the biographers of illustrious scholars when they attribute great scientific conquests to genius rather than to hard work and patience. What more could the weak will of the student or professor ask than to rationalise its laziness with the modest, and thus even more lamentable, admission of intellectual mediocrity! … Careful thought should make them realise how discouraging this can be to they readers.”