Everyone is a genius at least once a year. The real geniuses simply have their bright ideas closer together.

Lichtenberg’s aphorism treats “genius” less as a mystical gift than as a matter of frequency and follow-through. Most people, he suggests, occasionally produce an inspired insight—an inventive solution, a sharp observation, a sudden connection. What distinguishes the “real” genius is not a different kind of mind so much as a different density of such moments: bright ideas arrive more often, and thus compound into sustained originality. The remark also carries a gently leveling, democratic implication (anyone can have a flash of brilliance) while still preserving a meaningful distinction (genius is consistency, not a single stroke of luck).