“At times the whole world seems to be in conspiracy to importune you with emphatic trifles. Friend, client, child, sickness, fear, want, charity, all knock at once at thy closet door and say,—'Come out unto us.' But keep thy state; come not into their confusion. The power men possess to annoy me I give them by a weak curiosity. No man can come near me but through my act.”

“My friends have come to me unsought. The great God gave them to me.”

“I remember an answer which when quite young I was prompted to make to a valued adviser who was wont to importune me with the dear old doctrines of the church. On my saying, What have I to do with the sacredness of traditions, if I live wholly from within? my friend suggested--'But these impulses may be from below, not from above.' I replied, 'They do not seem to me to be such; but if I am the devil's child, I will live them from the devil.”

“As many thoughts in succession substantiate themselves, we shall by and by stand in a new world of our own creation, and no longer strangers and pilgrims in a traditionary globe. My friends have come to me unsought.... Will these, too, seperate themselves from me again, or some of them? I know not, but I fear it not; for my relation to them is so pure, that we hold by simple affinity, and the Genius of my life being thus social, the same affinity will exert its energy on whomsoever is as noble as these men and women, wherever I may be.”

“Give all to love;Obey thy heart....”

“If the red slayer think he slays,Or if the slain think he is slain,They know not well the subtle waysI keep, and pass, and turn again.Far or forgot to me is near,Shadow and sunlight are the same,The vanished gods to me appear,And one to me are shame and fame.They reckon ill who leave me out;When me they fly, I am the wings;I am the doubter and the doubt,And I the hymn the Brahmin sings.The strong gods pine for my abode,And pine in vain the sacred Seven;But thou, meek lover of the good!Find me, and turn thy back on heaven.”

“Go oft to the house of thy friend, for weeds choke the unused path.”