APAD:Genius is an infinite capacity for taking pains

Genius is an infinite capacity for taking pains

proverb:

What appears as exceptional intellectual or creative capacity is actually the ability to continually exert great effort and attention to detail. Maybe some designers are born with some innate brilliance, but their designs are the result of a laser focus on getting all the details right. Ultimately, genius is an infinite capacity for taking pains. He's a smart guy, yeah, but he's lazy. He won't get far, considering genius is an infinite capacity for taking pains. All these successful entrepreneurs had great ideas, sure, but they worked extremely hard to realize them. Genius is an infinite capacity for taking pains.
 

There are also a few more references:

Proverbial saying, late 19th century; Thomas Carlyle in Frederick the Great (1858) has, ‘ ‘.Genius’.…means transcendent capacity of taking trouble, first of all.’

This one might be from stories of Sherlock Holmes，“They say that genius is an infinite capacity for taking pains," he remarked with a smile. "It's a very bad definition, but it does apply to detective work.”

― Arthur Conan Doyle,