Q0261

Ralph Waldo Emerson

A verified English rendering from the curated archive.

English

To be great is to be misunderstood.
Thinker Ralph Waldo Emerson
School Transcendentalism
Source Self-Reliance
Theme Self
Another quotation More from this thinker

Source context

This English passage is associated with Self-Reliance, within the tradition of Transcendentalism. The wording below is a verified rendering prepared for careful reading rather than a claim of unique translation authority.

A short reading

Read in the register of self, the sentence asks the reader to test an assumption rather than to collect a slogan. In Ralph Waldo Emerson's wider work, similar claims are usually offered as prompts for judgment: what would have to be true for the sentence to hold, and what would follow if it did?

How to cite this quotation

APA: Ralph Waldo Emerson. (n.d.). To be great is to be misunderstood. In Philosophy Blind Box. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0261

MLA: Ralph Waldo Emerson. “To be great is to be misunderstood..” Philosophy Blind Box, https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0261.

Chicago: Ralph Waldo Emerson. “To be great is to be misunderstood..” Philosophy Blind Box. Accessed 2026. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0261.

Same thinker

More from Ralph Waldo Emerson

  1. Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string.
  2. A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.
  3. Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.
  4. Every sweet has its sour; every evil its good.
  5. For everything you have missed, you have gained something else; and for everything you gain, you lose something else.

All quotations by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Same theme

More on self

  1. A friend is another self.
  2. A person's character is their destiny.
  3. I searched for myself.
  4. It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare; it is because we do not dare that they are difficult.
  5. Claim yourself for yourself.

Browse the self theme