What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think. This rule, equally arduous in actual and in intellectual life, may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness.
Ralph Waldo EmersonHeroism works in contradiction to the voice of mankind and in contradiction, for a time, to the voice of the great and good. Heroism is an obedience to a secret impulse of an individual
Ralph Waldo EmersonIs all literature eavesdropping, and all art Chinese imitation? our life a custom, and our body borrowed, like a beggarโs dinner, from a hundred charities?
Ralph Waldo EmersonEvery body we know surrounds himself with a fine house, fine books, conservatory, gardens, equipage, and all manner of toys, as screens to interpose between himself and his guest. Does it not seem as if man was of a very sly, elusive nature, and dreaded nothing so much as a full rencontre front to front with his fellow?
Ralph Waldo Emerson