About Emerson...............

Faithful readers of this blog will understand that this blogger is a
fan of the writing of Ralph Waldo Emerson. A hundred or so (out
of the thousands of interest) quotes from Emerson have appeared
on these pages.  I never read Emerson in school.  I suppose he
just got lumped in with all those other classic 19th century
American writers whose style would never be described as light
and breezy.  In high school I found Hawthorne impenetrable, Poe
too frightening, and Crane too dark and real.  In college, Professor
Consolo's love for Moby Dick scared me off from Melville and
Thoreau's Walden just seemed tedious.   Never picked up
anything by Emerson.

Anyway, at a breakfast meeting about ten years ago, I
paraphrased the well known Emerson quote about the
foolishness of consistency. Friend Jim, an extremely bright tax
attorney, replied with the accurate, and extended, quote:

"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. - 'Ah so you shall
be sure to be 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."

Impressed, I visited the library.  It took a bit of time, in that
pre-Google era, to find the quote, but find it I did.  The search
was probably more valuable than the finding.  Emerson now
occupies a place of honor on my book shelves.