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努力に勝る天才なし doryoku ni masaru tensai nashi Hard work trumps natural ability

努力に勝る天才なし (doryoku ni masaru tensai nashi), there is no genius that outranks effort, is a modern Japanese saying with no author found. Its ranking came into Japanese print in 1909, in a translation of an American self-help book. This study follows the sentence in the National Diet Library's full text to 1930, and the Western names Japanese books gave it.

努力に勝る天才なし · doryoku ni masaru tensai nashi · There is no genius that outranks effort; no gift one is born with stands above hard work. No dictionary at kotobank and no JMdict entry has the sentence; it is read from the デジタル大辞泉's 努力, 天才 and 勝る, and Weblio gives *There is no genius that bests hard work*

Abstract

努力に勝る天才なし, doryoku ni masaru tensai nashi, there is no genius that outranks effort, says that no gift one is born with is worth more than hard work, and it is a modern Japanese saying with no author found: two large dictionaries of Japanese proverbs, of 1910 and 1933, do not carry it, and the earlier one does not contain the word 天才 at all. Two Western ideas came into Japanese print in the first decade of the twentieth century, the equation genius is effort, given to Lafcadio Hearn in a book of 1907, and the ranking genius will falter by the side of labor, in a translation of the American self-help writer Orison Swett Marden issued in 1909 and 1910. For a generation Japanese books gave the equation to a changing list of Western names, and they called sayings of this family a proverb by 1917 and an old proverb by 1935. The sentence itself, the ranking in the grammar of a proverb, is in print by 1930 in the National Diet Library's full text, and a career manual of 1936 is the first book found to call it 昔から, from of old.

Overview

The sense. No dictionary at kotobank has an entry for the sentence, and JMdict has none; it is read from its three words [1][2]. The デジタル大辞泉 defines 努力 as ある目的のために力を尽くして励むこと, putting out one's strength and striving toward a goal; 天才 as 生まれつき備わっている、並み外れてすぐれた才能。また、そういう才能をもった人, an outstanding talent one is born with, or a person who has it; and 勝る as 他と比べて価値や能力などが上である, to be above another in worth or ability [3][4][5]. So the sentence says that no one born with a gift stands above effort. Weblio's dictionary of English expressions gives it as There is no genius that bests hard work [6]. It is a ranking, not an equation: it grants that genius exists and puts it second.

The words. 努力, doryoku, is effort. The 精選版 日本国語大辞典 finds it in a text of about 760 and again in 1713, notes that the dictionaries of the cloistered-rule period and the middle ages do not list it, and says it came into wide use only after the Meiji Restoration; the 哲学字彙 of 1881 gives it for the English effort [3], the first of four words it sets beside the English, 努力、黽勉、拮据、鼓勵 [7]. 天才, tensai, genius or a natural gift, is old: the same dictionary cites a preface of 827 and the 太閤記 of 1625 [4]. 勝る, masaru, is to surpass, and it is the verb the sentence turns on. なし is the classical there is none. The rest of the sentence is ordinary modern Japanese, and its shape, 〜に勝る〜なし, there is no … that surpasses …, is the shape of a proverb. The career manual of 1936 prints the reading まさ beside 勝 [8].

The sentence in English. The bilingual dictionaries from Hepburn 1872 to 1946 carry no rendering of it [9]. The English books of Japanese proverbs do not have it: not Buchanan (1965), who has the opposite proverb, A prodigy at ten, a genius at twenty, but after thirty years an ordinary person [10]; not Galef (1987, 2000, 2012), whose nearest is a different saying, 大器晩成, genius matures late [11]; not Zona (1996) or Trimnell (2004) [12]. The earliest known English rendering, in the Internet Archive's full text, is in a study of schooling of 1992, Even genius cannot transcend effort, and later books copy it (In English) [13].

The historical record

The proverb dictionaries, 1910 and 1933

Fujii Otoo 藤井乙男's 諺語大辞典 of 1910, the largest dictionary of Japanese proverbs of its age, does not contain the word 天才 anywhere in its twelve hundred pages, and has 努力 only inside quotations of a Chinese poem [14]. Nakano Yoshihei 中野吉平's 俚諺大辞典 of 1933 has no 勝る天才 [15]. What the old proverbs say about talent is the opposite of this sentence: 六歲ノ神童、十六歲ノ才子、二十歲ノ凡人, a prodigy at six, a talent at sixteen, an ordinary man at twenty; 才智ハ身ノ仇, wit is one's own enemy; and from the Analects, 上智と下愚とは移らず, neither the highest wisdom nor the lowest folly can be moved. The tradition had proverbs about effort too, 瓦も磨けば玉となる, even a roof tile, polished, becomes a jewel, but it never set effort against genius. A dictionary of maxims of 1928 that marks its Western proverbs 西諺 carries two about genius, and not this one [16].

The equation, 1907 and 1909

1907. Hearn's name. A book on the making of character, 大原里靖's 人格の教養, says: 故小泉八雲氏、常に曰はく、天才は努力の結果也と。天才の路は他あるに非らず、たゞ努力のみ。 The late Mr. Koizumi Yakumo always said that genius is the result of effort. There is no other road to genius, only effort. Koizumi Yakumo is Lafcadio Hearn. The next sentence turns to the Japanese scholar 頼山陽 [17]. Hearn's own words for the line were not found for this history. The same year Katō Naoshi 加藤直士, writing of Michelangelo, put it as a warning, 世に天才は努力を要しないと想ふほど大なる間違はない, there is no greater mistake than to think that genius needs no effort [18]; and an algebra book of 1907 lets a student complain that the admonitions he had been given had done him no good, among them 天才ハ努力ニアリ, genius lies in effort [19]. By 1907 the equation was an admonition.

1909. Higuchi Dōgyū 樋口銅牛, 俳諧新研究, page 352. Here the idea comes labeled: 天才は努力の結果であるとは西洋の某文學家の主張であるさうな, that genius is the result of effort is, so they say, the contention of a certain Western literary man. Foreign, anonymous, and hedged. In the same breath he reaches for a Japanese equivalent, the Confucian Hoashi Banri 帆足萬里 teaching that Zhuangzi's prose was made not in one breath but by 鍛鍊, by training [20].

An American book, 1909 and 1910

立志論, issued in 1909 and 1910, is 竹村修's Japanese version of Orison Swett Marden's Pushing to the Front, published in Boston in 1894, and its title page names Marden [21][22]. Three lines that later Japanese books carry are in it, each with Marden's English behind it.

In December 1910 Takasu Baikei 高須梅渓's 百傑スケッチ 金言対照, a book of lives with maxims set beside them, gives 天才は大事業を起す而して之が完成するには唯働くを要するのみ, genius begins great works; to finish them needs only labor, and credits it to Joubert [23]. It translates a line of Joubert's Pensées exactly: Le génie commence les beaux ouvrages, mais le travail seul les achève [24].

Kōda Rohan's different argument, 1912

Kōda Rohan 幸田露伴's 努力論, On Effort, of 1912 argues something else. In the essay on the accumulation of effort its margin head reads 天才は努力の堆積の煥發なり, genius is the shining forth of accumulated effort, and the text says 所謂天才なるものは、其の系統上に於ける先人の努力の堆積が然らしめた結果と見るのが至當である, what is called genius is properly seen as the result of the effort piled up by those who came before in one's line [25]. For Rohan genius is real and inherited: effort makes it, but the effort is the ancestors'. It is not the equation and not the ranking.

Many names, 1912 to 1941

In the books of the next three decades the equation is said in many ways and given to many people:

The other direction appears too: 努力は天才を産み, effort gives birth to genius, in a banker's book of maxims of 1930 [42], and 『努力は天才を生む』と誰かが云つた, someone said effort gives birth to genius, in a guide for railway entrance examinations of 1935 [43].

Of all the names in this history, five have a Western line in print that the Japanese renders or echoes: Carlyle and Goethe through Marden, Dwight through Lubbock, Joubert in his Pensées, and Edison in American print (What is not a source). For Hearn, Strindberg, ウォルフ and Beethoven no Western address was found for this history, and each is reported here as a Japanese book's attribution. Flaubert's footing is a different sentence: Maupassant reports him passing on Chateaubriand's le talent n'est qu'une longue patience, talent is only a long patience [44].

The ranking, 1910 to 1936

Marden's ranking was in Japanese by 1910. The National Diet Library's full text shows the form genius does not reach effort in a business magazine of 1911 [45]. In 1917 a life of Napoleon calls the ranking a proverb of the people and sets it beside the old proverb of the prodigy: 世の俗諺に、『十で神童、十五で才子、二十歳過ぐれば、凡庸の人』と云ひ、又『努力は天才に勝る』とも云ふ, the common proverb says, a prodigy at ten, a talent at fifteen, an ordinary man past twenty, and it also says, effort outranks genius [46]. The same full text shows a physical education book of 1928 calling 努力は天才に勝る a famous saying [47]. A book on teaching physical education of 1931 gives the ranking and the equation side by side, 努力は天才にまさるとか、努力は天才であるとか言はれてゐる通り, as it is said that effort outranks genius, or that effort is genius [48].

A saying, then an old one

The books began to call these sentences sayings; the life of Napoleon of 1917 calls the ranking a 俗諺 (The ranking). In 1911 an education journal calls genius is effort a 格言, a maxim, and in 1924 a teacher's book of moral lessons calls the equation a 諺, a proverb, as the National Diet Library's full text shows [49][50]. A book of 1932 on local government and its men writes 天才は努力なり、艱難汝を玉にす　かうした格言をそのまゝ躬行實踐し, genius is effort, hardship makes you a jewel: practicing such maxims just as they stand [51]. In 1935 a book on calligraphy calls the form effort makes genius a 古諺, an old proverb, again as the full text shows [52]. A book of business lives of 1941 writes 「努力は天才なり」と言ふ諺の當否は別として, whether or not the proverb effort is genius is right [53].

The sentence, 1930 to 1942

In the National Diet Library's full text, searched oldest first for this history, the sentence is found in five books and magazines printed before 1946. The earliest is the April 1930 issue of 文検世界, a magazine for candidates in the national examination for teachers' licenses, where a successful candidate who says he could not receive a secondary education gives the sentence as the motto he never forgot, and gives it again at the end [54]. The same magazine in 1932, and a psychology textbook of 1933, carry a variant with ceaseless effort [55].

1936. Katō Naoshi, 就職より立身へ, chapter two, 努力と忍耐が何より大切, page 8. The first book found to call the sentence old: 昔から『努力に勝る天才なし』といつて、如何なる天分も才能も努力が之に伴はなければ決して眞價を發揮することは出來ぬものと極まつてゐる, from of old they say there is no genius that outranks effort: it is settled that no gift or talent shows its true worth unless effort goes with it. Then the worked example: the student who hates mathematics, encouraged by a teacher, turns the hours he spends on his strong subjects to it, and 性來嫌ひであつた數學が終には好きになつて、立派に自分の一弱點に打ち勝つことが出來る, the mathematics he hated by nature he comes to like, and he handsomely beats his one weak point [8]. The same author had written in 1907 that nothing is a greater mistake than to think genius needs no effort, and in 1939 gave the equation to Goethe [18][40].

In 1937 a course in calligraphy sets the sentence after the old proverb of the prodigy who becomes an ordinary man, just before its third lecture, you will surely improve; in 1941 a book of local lives calls it a 古語, an old saying; both as the full text shows [56][57].

1939, printed 1942. A will. 永田善男, a police official in Manchukuo, wrote to his children before a punitive expedition from which he did not return. His third instruction to them is 母や叔父様方の御教を良く遵奉して勉強せよ。努力に勝る天才なしと言ふ事を記憶して置きなさい, follow the teaching of your mother and your uncles, and study; remember the saying that there is no genius that outranks effort. The volume that prints it is a memorial book for colonial officials killed in Manchukuo. By 1939 the sentence was ordinary enough to be the thing a father hands a child in place of himself [58].

Japanese thoughts it was joined to

From the first, Japanese writers set a native voice beside the imported one. The book that gives the equation to Hearn in 1907 turns next to 頼山陽 [17]; a book on early education of 1917 quotes him in full, 頼山陽が嘗て『我を才子と言ふものは能く我を知るものに非ず、我を刻苦すといふものこそ、眞に我を知るものなり』と述懷したことがあるが、これは確に天才は努力なりといふ一面の眞理を道破したる言葉である, Rai San'yō once reflected: those who call me a talent do not know me; those who say I labor hard are the ones who truly know me. This puts in words one face of the truth that genius is effort [59]. The commentary on Zeami of 1940 reads Zeami's own teaching on the power of practice through the maxim: 「天才は努力する者なり」といふ語が眞理を持つて來る, the saying that the genius is the one who makes the effort comes to hold true [60].

The dissent, 1935

A school's book on home education of 1935: 天才は學んで達せられる範圍を脫してゐる。人が努力すれば相當のところまで進み行くことが出來るけれど、天才は努力だけでは到底達し得ぬ, genius lies beyond what learning can reach. A person who makes the effort can go a good way, but genius will never be reached by effort alone [61]. It is the sharpest reading in the record, and it was printed while the sentence was fixing.

In English

The earliest known English rendering, in the Internet Archive's full text, is in Harold W. Stevenson and James W. Stigler's The Learning Gap of 1992, a comparison of schooling in Japan, China and the United States, page 98: Doryoku ni masaru, tensai nashi (Even genius cannot transcend effort) [13]. David W. Johnson's Leading the Cooperative School (second edition, 1994) and a collection of 1998, Talent in Context, repeat the rendering [62][63], and David Robson's The Intelligence Trap of 2019 repeats it with the first word misspelled, doryoki [64]. These are one rendering and one witness. Samuel Hideo Yamashita's Daily Life in Wartime Japan of 2015 has a boy who was taught that "effort trumps brilliance" (doryoku wa tensai ni masaru), the ranking in the word order of 1917 [65]. All five books are lent by the archive, not open, and are read here in its search highlights.

Today

The sentence has no headword at kotobank [1]. It is used as a motto: a pharmacologist in 2017 gives it as the Japanese for an English proverb, “Slow and steady wins the race.”（努力に勝る天才なし） [66], and an obituary of 1976 gives the ranking as a professor's own words, 努力は天才に勝る, 努力なら俺だ, effort outranks genius; for effort, I'm the one [67].

What is not a source

The Western lines behind the names are known, and none of them is this sentence. Carlyle, in the History of Frederick the Great (1858–65): 'Genius' (which means transcendent capacity of taking trouble, first of all); the form genius is an infinite capacity for taking pains is an anonymous proverb of the late nineteenth century made from it [68], and Marden's infinite art is a third form. Buffon, as reported in 1803: Genius is only a greater aptitude for patience [69]. Edison, as a newspaper quoted him in 1901: Genius is 1 per cent inspiration and 99 per cent perspiration, and in 1898, Two per cent. is genius and ninety-eight per cent. is hard work [69]. Ruskin in 1878: I know of no genius but the genius of hard work [68]. Joubert's line gives genius the beginning and labor the end, and Dwight's defines genius as a power of effort: these set genius and labor side by side. The one that ranks them as the Japanese sentence does is Marden's Genius will falter by the side of labor, in a paragraph whose first sentence carries it is said and names no source [22]. 頼山陽, Zeami and Hoashi Banri are Japanese thoughts that the sentence was later joined to, not its sources.

A reading

The sentence is Japanese and younger than it sounds. What came from the West was a crowd of names and two sentences: the equation and its near forms, which Japanese books gave to Hearn, Goethe, Flaubert, Edison and others, and the ranking, which came in English from an American self-help book and was in Japanese by 1910. Japanese writers gave the ranking the grammar of a proverb, 〜に勝る〜なし, and six years after its earliest known print, in the National Diet Library's full text, a career manual called it old. I read the sentence as the ranking and 勝る as the word that carries it: it grants that genius is real and puts effort above it, which the equation does not. It is not an old Japanese proverb, and it says what the people who used it meant: a candidate for a teacher's license who had no secondary schooling, a father writing to his children. Signed, 典.

Notes

Earliest is scoped. The earliest known is a statement about the National Diet Library's full text, searched oldest first for this history, and about the Internet Archive's for the English; the issue of 1930 is the oldest item, and the book of 1936 the oldest whose page was opened.

The will's order. The library's text layer for the 1942 page sets the sentence after the second instruction; the page sets it at the end of the third, the instruction to study.

Dates. 立志論 was issued in parts in 1909 and 1910, the library's record says. The commentary on Zeami cited is the first volume, dated 1940 in its colophon; the library's record gives the set's span, 1940 to 1944. The copy of Lubbock read is a reprint of January 1895 of the edition of 1894.

Flaubert. フローベル could name Fröbel; the page is about a writer's labor, which reads it as Flaubert.

Sources not seen

Hearn's own words for the line, if he wrote it: not found in English.

The ウォルフ of Genie ist Fleiss, and the German line's source: not identified.

Any source for the Strindberg and Beethoven attributions: not found.

Joubert's first collection of 1838: not collated; the line is read in the edition of 1850.

The 経国集 of 827 and the 太閤記 of 1625: known here through the dictionary, not read at a leaf.

The pages of 文検世界 (1930, 1932), the psychology textbook of 1933, the calligraphy course of 1937, the book of local lives of 1941, the magazines of 1911 and the moral lessons of 1924: open only inside the National Diet Library.

The five English books of 1992 to 2019: lent, not open, and read here in search highlights.

A reader with access to any of these is invited to write to Takase Studios at Tim@Takase.com.

References

  1. 「努力に勝る天才なし」, kotobank, a search for the sentence: no headword in any of its dictionaries, only the words. https://kotobank.jp/search?q=努力に勝る天才なし
  2. JMdict, 「天才」・「努力」, at gokanji; no entry for the sentence. https://new.gokanji.com/word/天才
  3. 「努力」, デジタル大辞泉 and 精選版 日本国語大辞典 (with its 語誌), kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/努力-106568
  4. 「天才」, デジタル大辞泉 and 精選版 日本国語大辞典, kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/天才-102307
  5. 「勝る」, デジタル大辞泉, kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/勝る-634090
  6. 「努力に勝る天才なし」, Weblio 英語表現辞典. https://ejje.weblio.jp/content/努力に勝る天才なし
  7. 和田垣謙三 等編『哲学字彙』, 東京大学三学部, 1881, s.v. Effort. National Diet Library pid 752942, scan 17. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/752942/1/17
  8. 加藤直士『就職より立身へ : 人間工学の応用』, 東洋経済新報社, 1936, chapter 2, p. 8. National Diet Library pid 1255440, scan 13. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1255440/1/13
  9. The bilingual dictionaries 1872–1946, forty-nine books by full-text search, from James Curtis Hepburn, 『和英語林集成』, 2nd ed., 1872, National Diet Library pid 993689, https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/993689, to 竹原『スタンダード和英辞典』, 1946, pid 1126792, https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1126792.
  10. Daniel Crump Buchanan, Japanese Proverbs and Sayings, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, 1965, p. 171.
  11. David Galef, Even Monkeys Fall from Trees: The Wit and Wisdom of Japanese Proverbs, Tuttle, 1987; Even a Stone Buddha Can Talk, Tuttle, 2000; Japanese Proverbs: Wit and Wisdom, Tuttle, 2012, no. 112, p. 130.
  12. Guy A. Zona, Even Withered Trees Give Prosperity to the Mountain: And Other Proverbs of Japan, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1996; Edward E. Trimnell, Tigers, Devils, and Fools: A Guide to Japanese Proverbs, Beechmont Crest Publishing, 2004.
  13. Harold W. Stevenson and James W. Stigler, The Learning Gap, Summit Books, New York, 1992, p. 98, as the Internet Archive's full-text highlights give it (the scans are lent, not open). https://archive.org/details/learninggap00haro
  14. 藤井乙男『諺語大辞典』, 有朋堂, 1910. National Diet Library pid 862766, scan 363. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/862766/1/363
  15. 中野吉平『俚諺大辞典』, 1933. National Diet Library pid 1453041. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1453041
  16. 『金言名句一句千金辞典』, 1928. National Diet Library pid 1109999. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1109999
  17. 大原里靖『人格の教養』, 参文舎, 1907. National Diet Library pid 757250, scan 9. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/757250/1/9
  18. 加藤直士『文芸ト宗教』, 昭文堂, 1907. National Diet Library pid 825118, scan 119. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/825118/1/119
  19. 金子恭治著『代数学因数分括及其応用』, 橋南堂, 1907, p. 62. National Diet Library pid 828066, scan 38. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/828066/1/38
  20. 樋口銅牛『俳諧新研究』, 隆文館, 1909, p. 352. National Diet Library pid 875384, scan 190. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/875384/1/190
  21. マーデン著, 竹村修訳『立志論』, vols. 4–5, 内外出版協会, 1909–1910. National Diet Library pid 758506, scans 22 (Carlyle), 66 (Goethe) and 94 (the ranking). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/758506/1/94
  22. Orison Swett Marden, Pushing to the Front; or, Success under Difficulties, Houghton, Mifflin and Company, Boston and New York, 1894, chapter XVII, p. 273 (the chapter's epigraph), p. 330 and p. 349. https://archive.org/details/cu31924031229051
  23. 高須梅渓『百傑スケッチ : 金言対照』, 博文館, 1910. National Diet Library pid 758181, scan 56. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/758181/1/56
  24. Joseph Joubert, Pensées, essais et maximes, Librairie Ve Le Normant, 1850, vol. 2, Titre XXIII, at Wikisource. https://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es%2C_essais_et_maximes_%28Joubert%29/Titre_XXIII
  25. 幸田露伴『努力論』, 東亜堂書房, 1912. National Diet Library pid 949215, scan 60. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/949215/1/60
  26. 洛陽生『精神的各個教練』, 軍事教育会, 1912. National Diet Library pid 844340, scan 41. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/844340/1/41
  27. 金子薫園『誰でもわかる文章の作り方』, 1917. National Diet Library pid 953555, scan 76. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/953555/1/76
  28. エーベリ卿著, 仁村千代子訳『人生の利用』, 大野書店, 1917, p. 216. National Diet Library pid 959056, scan 117. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/959056/1/117
  29. John Lubbock, The Use of Life, Macmillan and Co., New York and London, 1894 (the copy read is the reprint of January 1895), chapter XIII, p. 214. https://archive.org/details/useoflife00lubbrich
  30. 徳田秋声『小品文作法』, 止善堂書店, 1918. National Diet Library pid 958812, scan 23. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/958812/1/23
  31. 松前三郎『受験ロマンス』, 1918, p. 31. National Diet Library pid 937833, scan 19. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/937833/1/19
  32. 小学教育研究会『綴り方教授の新研究』, 1918. National Diet Library pid 937806, scan 64. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/937806/1/64
  33. 宇野浩二『空しい春 : 或ひは春色梅之段』, 金星堂, 1921. National Diet Library pid 968294, scan 109. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/968294/1/109
  34. 『新選宇野浩二集』, 1928. National Diet Library pid 1170483, scan 172. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1170483/1/172
  35. 稲毛詛風『創造主義の生活』, 1922. National Diet Library pid 969237, scan 177. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/969237/1/177
  36. 鹿子木員信『理想主義的悪戦』, 1926. National Diet Library pid 1021744, scan 14. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1021744/1/14
  37. 賀川豊彦『神と苦難の克服』, 実業之日本社, 1932, pp. 68–71. National Diet Library pid 1216478, scan 42. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1216478/1/42
  38. 『日向商工大観』, 1932. National Diet Library pid 1107045, scan 402. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1107045/1/402
  39. 三省堂編輯所編『受験本位の作文』, 1934. National Diet Library pid 1457008, scan 125. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1457008/1/125
  40. 加藤直士『世に勝つ : 鋼鉄王カーネギーの成功の法則』, 東洋経済出版部, 1939. National Diet Library pid 1258372, scan 115. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1258372/1/115
  41. 池田謙三『人間工学 : 技術と人生』, 1941. National Diet Library pid 1123326, scan 16. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1123326/1/16
  42. 一瀬粂吉編『銀行業務改善隻語』, 1930. National Diet Library pid 1110153, scan 37. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1110153/1/37
  43. 鉄道教習所諸講師編『国有鉄道最新就職受験教典』, 大望書院, 1935. National Diet Library pid 1027597, scan 166. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1027597/1/166
  44. Guy de Maupassant, preface to Pierre et Jean, Paul Ollendorff, Paris, 1888, at Wikisource. https://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Pierre_et_Jean/Préface
  45. 『実業の世界』, June 1911, snippet view, National Diet Library. National Diet Library pid 10292821. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/10292821
  46. 千頭清臣『那翁大帝』, 1917. National Diet Library pid 951579, scan 63. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/951579/1/63
  47. 松山清治『小学校各学年体操教授法精説』, 1928, in the National Diet Library's full text (its scan was not located for this history). National Diet Library pid 1465445. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1465445
  48. 斎藤薫雄『新原理に立脚せる小学校体育の実際』, 明治図書, 1931. National Diet Library pid 1444069, scan 116. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1444069/1/116
  49. 『教育学術界』, 10 May 1911, snippet view, National Diet Library. National Diet Library pid 10984965. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/10984965
  50. 川島次郎『教材の研究を主としたる修身教授書』, 1924, snippet view, National Diet Library. National Diet Library pid 938931. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/938931
  51. 自治通信社編『地方自治政の沿革と其の人物 : 熊本県』, 1932. National Diet Library pid 1234599, scan 1290. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1234599/1/1290
  52. 松本寿鶴『新興書道の研究』, 1935, snippet view, National Diet Library. National Diet Library pid 1224553. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1224553
  53. 『興隆日本の財界人』, 1941. National Diet Library pid 1438601, scan 52. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1438601/1/52
  54. 『文検世界』, vol. 16 no. 4, 國民教育會, April 1930, snippet view, National Diet Library. National Diet Library pid 11170619. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/11170619
  55. 『文検世界』, vol. 18 no. 8, August 1932, pid 11170647, https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/11170647; 末広時彦『最新心理学概論』, 1933, pid 1210733, https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1210733; both in the National Diet Library's full text (the pages are not open outside the library).
  56. 黒木拝石, 荻野謙堂『書学新講』, 1937, snippet view, National Diet Library. National Diet Library pid 1220549. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1220549
  57. 水上正彦編『越中人物誌』, 1941, snippet view, National Diet Library. National Diet Library pid 1043088. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1043088
  58. 『満洲建設烈士遺芳録』, 満洲日日新聞社東京支社出版部, 1942, pp. 263–266. National Diet Library pid 1042940, scan 137. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1042940/1/137
  59. 服部北溟『我子の早教育』, 1917, pp. 46–47. National Diet Library pid 939301, scan 31. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/939301/1/31
  60. 能勢朝次『世阿弥十六部集評釈』上巻, 岩波書店, 1940. National Diet Library pid 1125601, scan 242. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1125601/1/242
  61. 福島県郡山市赤木尋常小学校『実際的家庭教育』, 1935. National Diet Library pid 1442173, scan 52. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1442173/1/52
  62. David W. Johnson, Leading the Cooperative School, 2nd ed., Interaction Book Co., Edina, Minnesota, 1994, as the Internet Archive's full-text highlights give it (the scans are lent, not open). https://archive.org/details/leadingcooperati0000john_f1a1_2nded
  63. Talent in Context: Historical and Social Perspectives on Giftedness, American Psychological Association, 1998 (the archive's copy is of 2002), as the Internet Archive's full-text highlights give it (the scans are lent, not open). https://archive.org/details/talentincontexth0000unse
  64. David Robson, The Intelligence Trap, W. W. Norton, New York, 2019, as the Internet Archive's full-text highlights give it (the scans are lent, not open). https://archive.org/details/intelligencetrap0000robs
  65. Samuel Hideo Yamashita, Daily Life in Wartime Japan, 1940–1945, University Press of Kansas, 2015, as the Internet Archive's full-text highlights give it (the scans are lent, not open). https://archive.org/details/dailylifeinwarti0000yama
  66. 石井伊都子「想像力の醸成」, 薬剤学 77(1), 2017, p. 24. https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/jpstj/77/1/77_22/_article
  67. 森俊治「故 竹山増次郎先生を偲ぶ」, 日本経営工学会誌 26(4), 1976. https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/jimapre/26/4/26_KJ00002836497/_article
  68. Knowles, ed., Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, 8th ed., Oxford University Press, 2014, Carlyle 18, Ruskin 2 and Proverbs 326.
  69. Shapiro, ed., The New Yale Book of Quotations, Yale University Press, 2021, Buffon 2 and Edison 2, p. 238.

Authors

Tim Jackowski (Systems Architect, Takase Studios, LLC) · 典 Ten (Anthropic Claude Opus 5.5, Takase Studios, LLC)

AI written · Ten wrote the history. Tim Jackowski commissioned it and answers for it.

Checked · grok-4.6 (xAI), 2026-09-05, citations (an earlier version) · gpt-6-astra (OpenAI), 2026-09-05, citations (an earlier version)

Cite as: Tim Jackowski and Ten, "Philology of 努力に勝る天才なし (doryoku ni masaru tensai nashi)," Takase Studios, 2026, https://takase.com/library/philology/doryoku-ni-masaru-tensai-nashi.