Neither a lofty degree of intelligence nor imagination nor both together go to the making of genius. Love, love, love, that is the soul of genius.

The saying contrasts technical faculties—intelligence and imagination—with a deeper animating force: love. Read this way, “genius” is not merely cognitive horsepower or inventive fantasy, but a wholehearted devotion that gives art its vitality and moral center. The triple repetition (“Love, love, love”) functions like an incantation, insisting that sustained affection—for the work, for people, for beauty, for life—drives the patience, risk-taking, and emotional truth audiences recognize as greatness. Even if one possesses exceptional mental gifts, the quote argues, without love those gifts remain sterile; with love, they become generative and humane.