He is a dull observer whose experience has not taught him the reality and force of magic, as well as of chemistry.

Among provocatives, the next best thing to good preaching is bad preaching. I have even more thoughts during or enduring it than at other times.

Man is a stream whose source is hidden. Our being is descending into us from we know not whence. The most exact calculator has noprescience that somewhat incalculable may not balk the very next moment. I am constrained every moment to acknowledge a higher origin for events than the will I call mine.

To laugh often and much ... this is to have succeeded. Probably not from Emerson: here's the full quotation and the story.

To accomplish excellence or anything outstanding, you must listen to that whisper which is heard by you alone.

Why has my motley diary no jokes? Because it is a soliloquy and every man is grave alone.

Every actual State is corrupt. Good men must not obey the laws too well. What satire on government can equal the severity of censure conveyed in the word politics ....?