Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.
Interpretation
Being misunderstood is often a sign of greatness and depth in thought.
This quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson emphasizes that many of history's greatest thinkers and innovators were often misunderstood in their time. It suggests that the path to greatness is fraught with misunderstanding, as those who challenge norms and introduce new ideas frequently face resistance and misinterpretation.
In practice
In a motivational speech about embracing individuality and creativity.
It is plain that there is no separate essence called courage, no cup or cell in the brain, no vessel in the heart containing drops or atoms that make or give this virtue; but it is the right or healthy state of every man, when he is free to do that which is constitutional to him to do.
Few people have any next, they live from hand to mouth without a plan, and are always at the end of their line.
Men cease to interest us when we find their limitations
Tis the good reader that makes the good book; a good head cannot read amiss: in every book he finds passages which seem confidences or asides hidden from all else and unmistakeably meant for his ear.
The world belongs to the energetic.
Hast thou named all the birds without a gun?
Impart as much as you can of your spiritual being to those who are on the road with you, and accept as something precious what comes back to you from them.
All progress is based upon a universal innate desire on the part of every organism to live beyond its income.
The yoke a man creates for himself by wrong-doing will breed hate in the kindliest nature.
If our life is poured out in useless words, we will never hear anything, never become anything, and in the end, because we have said everything before we had anything to say, we shall be left speechless at the moment of our greatest decision.
What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly; it is dearness only that gives everything its value.
It looks as if there were a single ultimate goal for mankind, a far goal toward which all persons strive. This is called variously by different authors self-actualization, self-realization, integration, psychological health, individuation, autonomy, creativity, productivity, but they all agree that this amounts to realizing the potentialities of the person, that is to say, becoming fully human, everything that person can be.
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