Source identified
Read & copy the quotation
“Character is higher than intellect.”
- Source
- The American Scholar
- Date
- 1837
Meaning of “Character is higher than intellect.”
Emerson ranks lived character above intellect considered by itself, insisting that thinking gains its fullest value when it belongs to an integrated way of living.
Where does it come from?
“The American Scholar” (1837), represented in Emerson’s Essays, Project Gutenberg #16643. Emerson contrasts thought as a partial function with the fuller act of living one’s truth; the line elevates character without dismissing intellectual life.