To be great is to be misunderstood.
Ralph Waldo Emerson · Essays: First Series
Courage & motivation
“To be great is to be misunderstood.”
- Author
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
- Work
- Essays: First Series
- Year
- 1841
- Length
- 7 words
- Source
- Project Gutenberg eBook #2944
Public domain. This passage is in the public domain. Ralph Waldo Emerson died in 1882, more than 70 years ago, and the work was first published in 1841. You can copy, print, read aloud or sell it without asking permission; a credit is kind but not required. The text is copied word for word from the Project Gutenberg edition linked here.
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Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string.
Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.
OUT of the night that covers me,Black as the Pit from pole to pole,I thank whatever gods may beFor my unconquerable soul.In the fell clutch of circumstanceI have not winced nor cried aloud.Under the bludgeonings of chanceMy head is bloody, but unbowed.Beyond this place of wrath and tearsLooms but the Horror of the shade,And yet the menace of the yearsFinds, and shall find, me unafraid.It matters not how strait the gate,How charged with punishments the scroll,I am the master of my fate:I am the captain of my soul.
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,If all men count with you, but none too much;If you can fill the unforgiving minuteWith sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!
I learned this, at least, by my experiment; that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.
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