Great thoughts play a paramount role in human history. However, even excellent thinkers can be underestimated greatly in most societies.

Attitudes towards thinkers mostly depend on the development levels of societies, and two factors may contribute to the above phenomenon. One is that pedagogues in political system can denigrate thinkers who hold dissents to their policies, which may affect their interests. The other is that law systems in societies are not so advanced that loopholes can be used by petty men. Socrates, one of the most eminent philosophers in Athens, was judged by the jury and prosecuted to die by people who envied him. Prominent though he was, people in Athens didn’t take him seriously.

Limitations of social conditions can give rise to people’s disapproving attitudes or even misunderstandings towards thinkers’ ideas. The mass entail opinions of thinkers they revere as indicators of ideology. Provided that a thinker people admired rebukes ideas of another whose thoughts may be quite radical for the current life, people may perceive his thoughts as infeasible views. For instance, two distinct living situations between Voltaire and Rousseau can prove that, though people may be competent enough to learn great thoughts, they can still exclude other excellent views, especially which are criticized by respectable thinkers.

For all great thinkers are admired, societies may not put their theories in to practice, for the theories can be too ideal to attain. In the Spring and Autumn Annals and Warring states period, for example, “universal love”, as the core value of Mohism, was advocated by a myriad of scholars, but was rather impractical for the rulers who believed that law-based ruling was more compatible with their realms.

In a word, enduring and laudable as eminent thinks’ thoughts can be, whether they can be cherished not only depends on the feasibility of their own thoughts, but atmospheres of societies.