Ralph Waldo Emerson’s diary, 1840

Guy wished all his friends dead on very slight occasion. Whoever was privy to one of his gaucheries had the honour of this Stygian op- tation. Had Jove heard all…

Every man passes his life in the search after friendship, and here is the letter which he writes to each candidate for his love.' . . .

Beside the self-repose which manners express the Alleghanies seem to me the drifting sand.

A man of genius or a work of love or beauty cannot be compounded like a loaf of bread by the best rules, but is always a new and incalcu- lable result like health.…

The objection to the popular Christianity is a philosophical one. It is in the nature of things that persons can never usurp in our minds the authority of Ideas.…

We should be very rich if we could speak the truth, for, since that is the law of our progress, in proportion to our truth we should coin the world into our words.…

Can we not trust ourselves ? Must we be such coxcombs as to keep watch and ward over our noblest sentiments even, lest they also be- tray us, and God prove a little…

Cities and coaches shall never impose on me again." . . .

You would have me love you. What shall I love? Your body? The supposition disgusts you. What you have thought and said ? Well, whilst you were thinking and saying…

Yes, I resent this intrusion of a few persons on my airy fields of existence. Shall our conver- sation when we meet, O wife, or sister Eliza- beth, still return,…

On Saturday evening I attended the wedding of Samuel Gray Ward and Anna Hazard Barker at the house of Mr. Farrar in Cambridge. Peace go with you, beautiful, pure,…

Circumstances are dreams, which, springing unawares from ourselves, amuse us whilst we doze and sleep, but when we wake, nothing but causes can content us. The life…

And must I go and do somewhat if I would learn new secrets of self-reliance ? for my chap- ter is not finished. But self-reliance is precisely that secret, — to…

Osman. — Fine people do not prosper with me: they are so curious and busy with their Claude Lorraine glasses, and their exploration of doves' necks and peacocks'…

In nature there is a mystical equality ; nothing is low. It costs the exertion of the very highest principle to effect the feeblest function of vege- table life.…

We all know why Jesus serves men so well for a deity: why pure and sublime souls like A Kempis and Herbert can expend their genius and heart so lavishly on his name…