Misunderstood Quotes

• 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.

  Audre Lorde

  Inspirational, Believe, Acceptance

  Audre Lorde (2012). “Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches”, p.40, Crossing Press

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• 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.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Life, Wise, Wisdom

  Essays "Self-Reliance" (1841)

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• To be great is to be misunderstood.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Success, Inspiration, Greatness

  Essays "Self-Reliance" (1841)

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• 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.

  Swami Vivekananda

  Inspiring, Acceptance, Thinking

  "Pearls of Wisdom". Book by Swami Vivekananda, edited by the Ramakrishna Mission, 2010.

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• It is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood.

  Karl Popper

  Communication, Way, Impossible

  Karl Popper (2005). “Unended Quest: An Intellectual Autobiography”, p.29, Routledge

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• I'm the most misunderstood, misquoted person I know, honestly.

  Dusty Springfield

  Honest, Persons, Knows

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• 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.

  Austin Kleon

  Names, People, Care

  Austin Kleon (2012). “Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative”, p.112, Workman Publishing

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• In the glad old days, before the rise of modern morbidities...it used to be thought a disadvantage to be misunderstood.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Modern, Used, Morbidity

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• 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.

  Rajneesh

  Sleep, Simple, People

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• we always misunderstood ourselves, and rarely understood others

  Oscar Wilde

  Understood

  Oscar Wilde (2015). “The Picture of Dorian Gray”, p.72, First Avenue Editions

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• I have suffered from being misunderstood, but I would have suffered a hell of a lot more if I had been understood.

  Clarence Darrow

  Government, Hell, Ifs

  As quoted in "Ain't Nobody's Business If You Do" by Peter McWilliams, from 2000 Years of Disbelief (1996) edited by James A Haught, p. 817,

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• Every deep thinker is more afraid of being understood than of being misunderstood.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Thinker, Being Misunderstood, Deep Thinker

  Friedrich Nietzsche (2016). “Beyond Good and Evil”, p.181, Friedrich Nietzsche

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• Form follows function - that has been misunderstood. Form and function should be one, joined in a spiritual union.

  Frank Lloyd Wright

  Spiritual, Design, Unions

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• We feel understood by people who like us; misunderstood by people who don't -- and those feelings are probably realistic.

  Hugh Prather

  People, Feelings, Realistic

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• I guess I should warn you, if I turn out to be particularly clear, you've probably misunderstood what I've said.

  Alan Greenspan

  Investing, Should, Said

  Speech in 1988. "What if the Fed Chief Speaks Plainly?" by Floyd Norris, www.nytimes.com. October 28, 2005.

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• Don't write so that you can be understood, write so that you can't be misunderstood.

  William Howard Taft

  Inspirational Life, Writing, Presidential

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred.

  W. H. Murray

  Commitment, Genius, Boldness And Courage

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• 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.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Moving, Commitment, Acting

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• With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Wall, Adventure, Consistency

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2010). “Self-Reliance, the Over-Soul, and Other Essays”, p.25, Coyote Canyon Press

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• A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.

  Henry Adams

  Inspirational, Leadership, Education

  The Education of Henry Adams ch. 20 (1907)

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• The worst tragedy for a poet is to be admired through being misunderstood.

  Jean Cocteau

  Tragedy, Poetic, Worst

  Le Coq et l'Arlequin (1918) in Le Rappel ... l'ordre (Recall to Order, 1926) p. 20

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• 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.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Wall, Thinking, Consistency

  Essays "Self-Reliance" (1841)

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• 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.

  Antonin Artaud

  Depression, Ideas, Delirium Tremens

  "Van Gogh, the Man Suicided by Society". Essay by Antonin Artaud, 1947.

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• I like being misunderstood.

  Lil Wayne

  Being Misunderstood

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• 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.

  John Cleese

  Ideas, Interesting, Long

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