For a companion, I require one who will make an equal demand on me with my own genius. Such a one will always be rightly tolerant.It is suicide, and corrupts good manners, to welcome any less than this. I value and trust those who love and praise my aspiration rather than my performance. If you would not stop to look at me, but look whither I am looking, and farther, then my education could not dispense with your company.

When our life ceases to be inward and private, conversation degenerates into mere gossip.

Most men cry better than they speak. You get more nurture out of them by pinching than addressing them.

If the injustice is part of the necessary friction of the machine of government, let it go, let it go: perchance it will wear smooth

When you travel to the Celestial City, carry no letter of introduction. When you knock, ask to see God,--none of the servants.

Every path but your own is the path of fate. Keep on your own track, then.

Every man looks at his wood-pile with a kind of affection.