24 August 2014

Maybe so

Ralph Waldo Emerson said, in Self Reliance in 1841: "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds", but Rico's cats ensure that getting up is a consistent thing, even of a Sunday. (And where, in all the damned Internet, is that great Sunday ad from Firesign Theatre about the 'amphetamine motor speedway'?) But when was the last time you saw a hobgoblin, or even knew what one was? (Rico did, but he's weird...)

Rico says the whole quote is:
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 to-day. — '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.

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