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?
Prudence is a rich, ugly, old maid courted by incapacity.
Programming is not a zero-sum game. Teaching something to a fellow programmer doesn't take it away from you. I'm happy to share what I can, because I'm in it for the love of programming.
Great wisdom not applied to action and behavior is meaningless data.
A wise man should so write (though in words understood by all men) that wise men only should be able to commend him.
The lower you are, the higher your mind will want to soar. It was natural that, bereft and desperate as I was, in the throes of unremitting suffering. I should turn to God
The real destroyer of inner peace is fear and distrust. Fear develops frustration, frustration develops anger, anger develops violence.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.