Be Inconsistent by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Well, at least be willing and able to be inconsistent. It's so easy for us to get locked into a way of thinking or to maintain an opinion simply because we strongly felt a certain way at one point. But, my God! If you can't break free and give yourself the power to change your mind, your job, your strategy, your relationships, whatever...you, uh, are kinda out of luck.

Love Emerson's comments on the subject: "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 today. - ‘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."

Let's concern ourselves with more than our shadow on the wall, shall we? :) Besides. Who wants to be a hobgoblin, anyhoo?!!? :)

"What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think. This rule, equally arduous in actual and in intellectual life, may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness." ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

More from Ralph Waldo Emerson…

• Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Big Ideas
• Ralph Waldo Emerson’s quotes
• Buy the book from Amazon!
• Check out the Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Site

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