Text 5 [A] Defining genius. [B] Bias attacked. [C] Truly great mind is born, not made. [D] The line between the exceptional and the ordinary blurs. [E] Brain steers, labor facilitates. [F] Great lesson from a great character. 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, afford ample opportunity for acquiring experience of the best kind; and its most beaten paths provide the true worker with abundant scope for effort and room for self-improvement. The road of human welfare lies along the old highway of steadfast well-doing; and they who are the most persistent, and work in the truest spirit, will usually be the most successful. ______ Genius may not be necessary, though even genius of the highest sort does not disdain the use of these ordinary qualities; 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. Some have even defined genius to be only common sense intensified. A distinguished teacher and president of a college spoken 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".