Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes

No one can be profoundly original who does not avoid eccentricity.

Yes, I think I am a genius, but not a rebel.

When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him.

The greater a man's talents, the more marked his idiosyncracies. Yet in the provinces originality is considered perilously close to lunacy.

Anybody talented in any way - they're called eccentric.

In the republic of mediocrity, genius is dangerous.

The man whose action habitually bears the stamp of his mind is a genius, but the greatest genius is not always equal to himself, or he would cease to be human.

The thing early on that you think is 'wrong' with you, that makes you not fit in with everyone else, becomes the key to your career as an actor. Start embracing it.

To be great is to be misunderstood.

But to me, to be original is to be yourself.

The amount of eccentricity in a society has generally been proportional to the amount of genius, mental vigor, and moral courage it contained. That so few now dare to be eccentric marks the chief danger of the time.

Always be different; don't follow the rules. Don't do what anyone tells you. Don't use the same sounds as people; don't use the same drums as people.

Genius is essentially creative; it bears the stamp of the individual who possesses it.

Eccentricity has always abounded when and where strength of character had abounded; and the amount of eccentricity in a society has generally been proportional to the amount of genius, mental vigor, and courage which it contained.

The principle mark of genius is not perfection but originality, the opening of new frontiers.

I don't want to go out there and do something 3,000 other people can do.

In this world, one thing you should definitely strive for is originality. Just be who you are, and be your own person. That's what will make you stand out.

I never tried to sing like anybody else, fortunately I didn't sound like anybody else. It just happened.

The American people ... have a stake in con-conformity, for they know that the American genius is non-conformist.

Human progress is furthered, not by conformity, but by aberration.

The weirder the better for me.

I know that whatever I put out, whether people think it's pop or noise or whatever, it's always going to be some kind of a freak or mutation. It's not going to be anything pure that a lot of people will relate to. And that's fine.

Different is good, and being different is what makes us stand out in the world.

For someone to stand up against the norm makes them very intriguing to me.

I feel like the most human among us are the weirdest among us. Those voices can be the most creative and the most special. You look around at your parents, your friends, your aunts and uncles, and you realize nobody is normal.