As brilliant as they were, the true contribution of Moses, Plato, Jesus, and the like is that they sidestepped history and tradition and spoke their own mind, not a rehash of what the experts agreed on.
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True brilliance is noticing the little gleam of light that flashes through your own mind from within, not the neon signs of experts and world leaders.------------------
But we give up on our own thoughts without a fight, simply because they are ours! In every work of genius, don't we recognize our own rejected thoughts? They return to us with a certain alienated majesty. The most important lesson we can learn from great works of art is this: to stand behind our spontaneous impression with gentle firmness, even and especially when the fans are all cheering for the other side. And if we don't? Tomorrow some stranger will come along and say quite eloquently what we thought and felt all the time, and we'll have to shamefully take our own opinion from someone else.
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