In a long paragraph, put into the mouth of David Copperfield, Dickens tells how he became successful.
I was reminded of the apothegm "Genius is the infinite capacity for taking pains." But when I checked, that is not the original quotation. Joke on me.

The Columbia World of Quotations. 1996.


NUMBER: 10544
QUOTATION: Genius (which means transcendent capacity of taking trouble, first of all).
ATTRIBUTION: Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881), Scottish essayist, historian. The History of Frederick II of Prussia, bk. 4, ch. 3 (1858-1865).

The words are often misquoted as “Genius is an infinite capacity for taking pains.”

For anyone interested, the long paragraph is beginning of Ch.42
http://www.online-literature.com/dickens/copperfield/42/