I guess I didn’t state my meaning in posting what I did.
True, it was by Emerson, but a couple of others had already cited it and attributed it to Emerson in the thread, so I thought that was established as part of the conversation. However, taking that snippet out of context like that reduces it from a great piece of literature to shallow put-down. Consistency has its place. People go babbling that little snippet out of context over and over again as an excuse for sloppy thinking. Let me be clear: IMHO sloppy thinking is not good. And part of sloppy thinking is a “foolish” consistency. In full context, then, this is an astonishing piece of literature, rather than a glib put-down:
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.
And to be clear, Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote it. And if someone cited just the first sentence, or as is more often the case the first several words, as so many people often do, which I feel is very unfortunate, I was, in my own way, hoping that they would gain some greater insight by reading the full quote.