A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere. Before him I may think aloud. I am arrived at last in the presence of a man so real and equal, that I may drop even those undermost garments of dissimulation, courtesy, and second thought, which men never put off, and may deal with him with the simplicity and wholeness with which one chemical atom meets another.
Ralph Waldo EmersonPoverty, Frost, Famine, Rain, Disease, are the beadles and guardsmen that hold us to Common Sense.
Ralph Waldo EmersonWith thought, with the ideal, is immortal hilarity, the rose of joy. Round it all the muses sing.
Ralph Waldo EmersonThe purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.
Ralph Waldo EmersonKnowledge is the antidote to fear. [especially as fear often stands for false evidence appearing real!]
Ralph Waldo Emerson