“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.
“Each progressive spirit is opposed by a thousand mediocre minds appointed to guard the past.”
As quoted in Optimum Sports Nutrition (1993) by Michael Colgan, p. 144
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Maurice Maeterlinck21
Belgian playwright, poet, and essayist 1862–1949Related quotes
Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity
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.
“The prophet is appointed to oppose the king, and even more: history.”
Martin Buber (1878–1965) German Jewish Existentialist philosopher and theologian
BBC radio broadcast (1962), as quoted in The Great Thoughts (1984) by George Seldes
“Two great poets are stronger than two thousand mediocrities”
Dana Gioia (1950) American writer
31
Essays, Can Poetry Matter? (1991), The Catholic Writer Today (2013)
Friedrich Nietzsche book Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks
Source: Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks (posthumous), p. 32
“The quickest way to kill the human spirit is to ask someone to do mediocre work.”
Ayn Rand (1905–1982) Russian-American novelist and philosopher
Henry Giles (1809–1882) Irish minister
Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 160.
Henri de Saint-Simon (1760–1825) French early socialist theorist
Preface
The Reorganization of the European Community (1814)
Robert Browning Rabbi ben Ezra
Source: Dramatis Personae (1864), Rabbi Ben Ezra, Line 121.
Context: Be there, for once and all,
Severed great minds from small,
Announced to each his station in the Past!
Was I, the world arraigned,
Were they, my soul disdained,
Right? Let age speak the truth and give us peace at last!
Now, who shall arbitrate?
Ten men love what I hate,
Shun what I follow, slight what I receive;
Ten, who in ears and eyes
Match me: we all surmise,
They this thing, I that: whom shall my soul believe?