The cheese and wine party has the form of friendship without the warmth and devotion. It is a device either for getting rid of social obligations hurriedly en mass, or for making overtures towards more serious social relationships, as in the etiquette of whoring.

I have no objections to churches so long as they do not interfere with God's work.

Writing is not an end in itself but life transmuted into radiance.

Drop the last year into the silent limbo of the past. Let it go, for it was imperfect, and thank God that it can go.

Walking companions, like heroes, are difficult to pluck out of the crowd of acquaintances. Good dispositions, ready wit, friendly conversation serve well enough by the fireside but they prove insufficient in the field. For there you need transcendentalists-nothing less; you need poets, sages, humorists and natural philosophers.

In every age 'the good old days' were a myth. No one ever thought they were good at the time. For every age has consisted of crises that seemed intolerable to the people who lived through them.

It takes most men five years to recover from a college education, and to learn that poetry is as vital to thinking as knowledge.