The only way to have a friend is to be one. A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere. Before him, I may think aloud. Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind. Absolve you to yourself, and you shall have the suffrage of the world.
Men achieve a certain greatness unawares, when working to another aim.
The measure of a master is his success in bringing all men round to his opinion 20 years later. If a man can write a better book, preach a better sermon or make a better mousetrap than his neighbor, though he build his house in the woods, the world will make a beaten path to his door. We do what we must, and call it by the best names. Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us, or we find it not. A chief event of life is the day in which we have encountered a mind that startled us.