{{B}}Genius{{/B}}
The greatest results in life are usually attained by simple means, and the exercise of ordinary qualities. The common life of every day, with its cares, necessities, and duties, affords ample opportunity for acquiring experience of the best kind; and (56){{U}} its most beaten paths provide the true worker with abundant scope for effort and room for self-improvement.{{/U}} (57){{U}} The road of human welfare lies along the old highway of steadfast well-doing; {{/U}}and they who are the most persistent, and work in the truest spirit, will usually be the most successful.
Fortune has often been blamed for her blindness; but fortune is not so blind as men are. (58) {{U}}Those who look into practical life will find that fortune is usually on the side of the industrious, as the winds and waves are on the side of the best navigators.{{/U}} In the pursuit of even the highest branches of human inquiry, the commoner qualities are found the most useful— such as common sense, attention, application, and perseverance.
Genius may not be necessary, though even genius of the highest sort does not disdain the use of these ordinary qualities. (59) {{U}}The very greatest men have been among the least believers in the power of genius, and as worldly wise and persevering as successful men of the commoner sort. {{/U}}(60) {{U}}Some have even defined genius to be only common sense intensifiers.{{/U}} A distinguished teacher and president of a college spoke of it as the power of making efforts. John Foster held it to be the power of lighting one's own fire. Buffon said of genius "it is patience".