But [man’s] banishment to [a desert’s] rocks and echoes no metaphysics can make right or tolerable. This result is so against nature, such a half-view, that it must be corrected by a common sense and experience […] A man must be clothed with society, or we shall fe...

We have known many fine geniuses with that imperfection that they cannot do anything useful, not so much as write one clean sentence. ‘Tis worse, and tragic, that no man is fit for society who has fine traits. At a distance he is admired, but bring him han...

We pray to be conventional. But the wary Heaven takes care you shall not be, if there is anything good in you.

Nature protects her own work. To the culture of the world an Archimedes, a Newton is indispensable; so she guards them by a certain aridity. If these had been good fellows, fond of dancing, port, and clubs, we should have had no “Theory of the Sphere” and ...

Dear heart! take it sadly home to thee,– there is no cooperation. We begin with friendships, and all our youth is a reconnoitering and recruiting of the holy fraternity they shall combine for the salvation of men. But so the remoter stars seem a nebula of ...

Don’t say things. What you are stands over you the while, and thunders so that I cannot hear what you say to the contrary.

But the necessity of solitude is deeper than we have said, and is organic. I have seen many a philosopher whose world is large enough for only one person. He affects to be a good companion; but we are still surprising his secret, that he means and needs to impose h...