Faith & Spirit Quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Emerson isn’t flattering ignorance here; he’s quietly indicting a culture that confuses cleverness with virtue. “Character is higher than intellect” lands like a moral recalibration: the mind can be dazzling and still evasive, a tool for rationalizing appetites, ducking responsibility, or winning arguments that change nothing. Emerson’s jab is aimed at the parlor-room genius, the polished talker, the person who can “think” brilliantly in theory while living timidly in practice.

The second sentence sharpens the demand. “A great soul” isn’t a brain with better wiring; it’s a self with backbone. The phrasing “strong to live as well as think” makes living sound strenuous, even athletic. That’s intentional. Emerson’s Transcendentalist project was never just metaphysics; it was a call to personal sovereignty, to a life where principles survive contact with society, fear, comfort, and fashion. Thinking is cheap if it can’t bear weight.

The subtext is also democratic and suspicious of credentialed authority. In early-19th-century America, as institutions professionalized and intellectual status hardened into a kind of class marker, Emerson keeps relocating greatness where it can’t be certified: in conduct, courage, integrity. He’s warning that intellect can become a refuge from risk - a way to observe life rather than commit to it. The “higher” here is less about piety than hierarchy: character sits above intellect because it governs what intellect is used for.