A man known to us only as a celebrity in politics or in trade, gains largely in our esteem if we discover that he has some intellectual taste or skill.

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

The unbelief of the age is attested by the loud condemnation of trifles.

We dare not trust our wit for making our house pleasant to our friend, so we buy ice cream.

That which we call sin in others is experiment for us.

A home kept to the end of display is impossible to all but a few women, and their success is dearly bought.

Dear to us are those who love us... but dearer are those who reject us as unworthy, for they add another life; they build a heaven before us whereof we had not dreamed, and thereby supply to us new powers out of the recesses of the spirit, and urge us to new and unattempted performances.