“Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.”
Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity
Variant: Great ideas often receive violent opposition from mediocre minds.
“Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds. The mediocre mind is incapable of understanding the man who refuses to bow blindly to conventional prejudices and chooses instead to express his opinions courageously and honestly.”
Letter to Morris Raphael Cohen, professor emeritus of philosophy at the College of the City of New York, defending the appointment of Bertrand Russell to a teaching position (19 March 1940).
1940s
Variant: Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence and fulfills the duty to express the results of his thoughts in clear form.
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Albert Einstein702
German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativi… 1879–1955Related quotes
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“Mediocre minds usually dismiss anything which reaches beyond their own understanding.”
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Maxim 375.
Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims (1665–1678)
Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity
The New Quotable Einstein
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As quoted in Nine Old Men (1936) by Drew Pearson and Robert Sharon Allen, p. 221
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“Whoever has an opinion of his own, and honestly expresses it, will be guilty of heresy.”
Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer
Heretics and Heresies (1874)
Context: Whoever has an opinion of his own, and honestly expresses it, will be guilty of heresy. Heresy is what the minority believe; it is the name given by the powerful to the doctrine of the weak.
Eugène Delacroix (1798–1863) French painter
13 January 1857 (p. 334)
1831 - 1863, Delacroix' 'Journal' (1847 – 1863)