Solitude is impractical, and society fatal. We must keep our head in the one and our hands in the other. The conditions are met, if we keep our independence, yet do not lose our sympathy.
Ralph Waldo EmersonCulture is the suggestion, from certain best thoughts, that a man has a range of affinities through which he can modulate the violence of any master-tones that have a droning preponderance in his scale, and succor him against himself. Culture redresses this imbalance, puts him among equals and superiors, revives the delicious sense of sympathy, and warns him of the dangers of solitude and repulsion.
Ralph Waldo EmersonSome of your griefs you have cured, And the sharpest you still have survived, But what torments of grief you've endured From evils that never arrived.
Ralph Waldo Emerson