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?
The mind is like a richly woven tapestry in which the colors are distilled from the experiences of the senses, and the design drawn from the convolutions of the intellect.
Jessica stopped beside him, said: 'What delicious abandon in the sleep of a child.' He spoke mechanically: 'If only adults could relax like that.' 'Yes.' 'Where do we lose it?' he murmured. 'We do, indeed, lose something,' she said.
We are always on the anvil; by trials God is shaping us for higher things.
The wisest of the wise may err.
Weariness can snore upon the flint when resting sloth finds the down pillow hard.
Cease thy counsel, for thy words fall into my ears as priceless as water into a seive.
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