but in no way should they be considered as lazy students/ people.
I understand your point and those famous examples are clearly not lazy people, but when it comes to studies they probably were not the teacher's favorites. And yes, they probably had more important things in their minds than investing time to comply with academic requirements.
The famous examples you pointed out are nothing but a mere dot in the biggest picture where, as we speak hundreds thousands lazy people are failing in life.
If a person is lazy in life in general, then that person would have problem finding success. Of course hard work pays off, the subject in question is that there are people who weren't the best students, and still managed to find huge success later in life.
Thanks for sharing your opinion!