I have come to believe over and over again that what is most important to me must be spoken, made verbal and shared, even at the risk of having it bruised or misunderstood.
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.
To be great is to be misunderstood.
Each work has to pass through these stages—ridicule, opposition, and then acceptance. Those who think ahead of their time are sure to be misunderstood.
It is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood.
I'm the most misunderstood, misquoted person I know, honestly.
Not everybody will get it. People will misinterpret you and what you do. They might even call you names. So get comfortable with being misunderstood, disparaged, or ignored -- the trick is to be too busy doing your work to care.
In the glad old days, before the rise of modern morbidities...it used to be thought a disadvantage to be misunderstood.
I have been misunderstood perhaps more than anyone else ever, but it has not affected me, for the simple reason that there is no desire to be understood. It is their problem if they don't understand, it is not my problem. If they misunderstand, it is their problem and their misery. I am not going to waste my sleep because millions of people are misunderstanding me.
we always misunderstood ourselves, and rarely understood others
I have suffered from being misunderstood, but I would have suffered a hell of a lot more if I had been understood.
Every deep thinker is more afraid of being understood than of being misunderstood.
Form follows function - that has been misunderstood. Form and function should be one, joined in a spiritual union.
We feel understood by people who like us; misunderstood by people who don't -- and those feelings are probably realistic.
I guess I should warn you, if I turn out to be particularly clear, you've probably misunderstood what I've said.
Don't write so that you can be understood, write so that you can't be misunderstood.
All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred.
The moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves, too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never have otherwise occurred...unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way.
With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall.
A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.
The worst tragedy for a poet is to be admired through being misunderstood.
A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day.
There is in every madman a misunderstood genius whose idea, shining in his head, frightened people, and for whom delirium was the only solution to the strangulation that life had prepared for him.
I like being misunderstood.
The really good idea is always traceable back quite a long way, often to a not very good idea which sparked off another idea that was only slightly better, which somebody else misunderstood in such a way that they then said something which was really rather interesting.
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