Talent hits a target no one else can hit; genius hits a target no one else can see
Not Schopenhauer's wording — a modern paraphraseArthur Schopenhauer1788–1860 · German philosopher
?Attribution status: Right philosopher, right idea, wrong words: the snappy version matches no translation of the passage.✓Reuse status: Free to reuse
The thought is genuinely Schopenhauer’s — it sits in chapter 31, “On Genius,” of the 1844 second volume of Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung. But he wrote about a marksman hitting a mark, not about “hitting a target no one else can see,” and no published translation reads the way the viral one-liner does. The popular wording is an anonymous modern condensation.
“Talent hits a target no one else can hit; genius hits a target no one else can see” The man of talent is like the marksman who hits a mark the others cannot hit; the man of genius is like the marksman who hits a mark they cannot even see to. — Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Idea, vol. 3, ch. 31 "On Genius" (trans. Haldane & Kemp, 1909; originally Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung, vol. 2, 1844). The popular "hits a target no one else can see" version is a modern paraphrase. Via Quotle.info
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Provenance
Chapter 31, “On Genius”
Work
Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung, Zweiter Band
Location
Ergänzungen zum dritten Buch, ch. 31, “Vom Genie” (On Genius)
First published
1844 (the supplementary second volume)
Translation
R. B. Haldane & J. Kemp, The World as Will and Idea, Vol. III, 6th ed. (Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co., 1909)
The man of talent can achieve what is beyond the power of achievement of other men, but not what is beyond their power of apprehension: therefore he at once finds those who prize him. But the achievement of the man of genius, on the contrary, transcends not only the power of achievement, but also the power of apprehension of others; therefore they do not become directly conscious of him. The man of talent is like the marksman who hits a mark the others cannot hit; the man of genius is like the marksman who hits a mark they cannot even see to; therefore they only get news of him indirectly, and thus late; and even this they only accept upon trust and faith.
ch. 31, “On Genius”
Haldane & Kemp’s 1909 rendering, quoted from the Project Gutenberg text of Vol. III. Note that the word “target” never appears — Schopenhauer’s Ziel is Englished here as “mark,” and the sentence keeps the marksman simile the popular version discards.
The German original stands in Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung, Vol. 2, Ergänzungen zum dritten Buch, ch. 31 “Vom Genie”: “Das Talent gleicht dem Schützen, der ein Ziel trifft, welches die Uebrigen nicht erreichen können…” — carried in the verified (Überprüft) section of German Wikiquote ↗.
The English text confirms it. A full-text search of the Haldane & Kemp translation at Project Gutenberg ↗ finds the marksman sentence in ch. 31 — and finds no occurrence of “hits a target” anywhere in the volume.
WIST ↗ sets the German beside the Payne (1958) translation and labels the familiar short version as a common paraphrase.
English Wikiquote ↗ prints the condensed form beside the German original and cites the passage to “Vol. II, Ch. III, para. 31 (On Genius), 1844” — but it names no translator for the English. It sources that wording only to The Little Book of Bathroom Philosophy: Daily Wisdom from the Greatest Thinkers (2004) by Gregory Bergman, p. 137. The one-liner’s documented English pedigree runs to a popular compilation, not to any translation of Schopenhauer.
✓Public domain
The German original (1844) and the Haldane & Kemp translation excerpted here (Vol. III, 6th ed., 1909) were both published well before 1931, so both are in the public domain in the United States — Project Gutenberg distributes the full translation freely on that basis. Two caveats: E. F. J. Payne’s 1958 translation, widely quoted elsewhere, is a separate and still-in-copyright work; and the popular condensed wording is an anonymous modern paraphrase whose origin nobody has traced, so no rights status is asserted for that phrasing.
Fact-check
What’s actually wrong here
This is an unusual case: the attribution is right and the wording is not. Schopenhauer really did write this thought, in a chapter you can read today — but nobody has ever found the famous sentence in his work, because he never wrote it that way.
✕
WordingThe viral one-liner paraphrase
The two standard English translations both keep Schopenhauer’s marksman simile. Haldane & Kemp give “The man of talent is like the marksman who hits a mark the others cannot hit; the man of genius is like the marksman who hits a mark they cannot even see to” — a full-text search of that translation on Project Gutenberg ↗ turns up no instance of the phrase “hits a target.”
✕
TranslationE. F. J. Payne (1958) not the source
Payne’s 1958 translation is the likely route by which the word target entered English circulation — his sentence reads “Talent is like the marksman who hits a target which others cannot reach; genius is like the marksman who hits a target, as far as which others cannot even see,” as WIST ↗ documents alongside the German. But Payne did not write the one-liner: he keeps the marksman and the second clause the popular form deletes, and WIST separately labels the short version a common paraphrase. Nor is he credited for it — Wikiquote ↗ names no translator for the condensed English, sourcing it instead to a 2004 popular compilation.
✕
DateThe 1818 first volume wrong work
The line is often filed under Schopenhauer’s 1818/19 masterwork — The Marginalian ↗, for instance, presents the passage under the 1818 title. The marksman comparison is not in that book: it belongs to the supplementary second volume Schopenhauer published in 1844, a quarter-century later.
✓Schopenhauer earned this one — just not in these words. The genuine sentence, marksman and all, is in chapter 31, “On Genius,” and you can read it free at Project Gutenberg ↗.
Context
Why the paraphrase caught on
Schopenhauer’s actual argument is more careful than the slogan. He is not saying genius aims further; he is saying genius outruns other people’s capacity to comprehend what was even attempted. Talent, he writes, does what others cannot do — but they can still see what it did, so it is applauded immediately. Genius does what others cannot even perceive as a goal, which is why, in his words, recognition arrives only secondhand and late, accepted “upon trust and faith.”
That last clause is the bitter heart of the passage, and it is exactly what the viral version drops. Schopenhauer — whose own masterwork sold so poorly that he claimed most copies were pulped — was writing about neglect, not about aiming high. Stripped to fourteen words, a complaint about being ignored in one’s own lifetime became a motivational poster.
Genius is the marksman whose target the crowd cannot even see — so the applause, if it comes, comes late.
How the wording drifted
The 1844 German reads: “Das Talent gleicht dem Schützen, der ein Ziel trifft, welches die Uebrigen nicht erreichen können; das Genie dem, der eines trifft, bis zu welchem sie nicht ein Mal zu sehn vermögen.” The German noun Ziel can be Englished as either “mark” or “target,” and the two standard translations split on it: Haldane & Kemp chose “mark,” while Payne’s 1958 version renders it “target” twice — “Talent is like the marksman who hits a target which others cannot reach…” That is almost certainly where the word entered circulation. The condensed form then dropped Payne’s marksman and his second clause.
Both canonical English versions keep Schopenhauer’s full simile structure (“is like the marksman who…”). The popular form deletes the marksman entirely and turns the simile into a direct metaphor, which is tighter, more symmetrical, and far more quotable — the classic signature of a paraphrase that has outcompeted its original.
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Filed under
More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.
1788–1860 · German philosopher of will and pessimism
Arthur Schopenhauer built his entire philosophy on the claim that a blind, striving will underlies the world, and that art and contemplation offer the only real escape from it. His masterwork Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung (1818/19) was ignored for decades; he added a second volume of supplementary essays in 1844, and it is there — in the chapter “Vom Genie” — that the marksman comparison appears. His late aphoristic style made him one of the most quotable philosophers who ever wrote, which is precisely why so many lines he never wrote now carry his name.
For writers & researchers
Cite this
Primary source
Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Idea, vol. 3, trans. R. B. Haldane and J. Kemp, 6th ed. (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co., 1909), ch. 31, “On Genius.” Originally published as Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung, vol. 2, Ergänzungen zum dritten Buch, ch. 31, “Vom Genie” (1844).
This verification page
Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘Talent hits a target no one else can hit; genius hits a target no one else can see’?” Last verified 15 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/talent-hits-a-target-no-one-else-can-hit-genius-hits-a