“Shall I tell you the secret of the true scholar? It is this: every man I meet is my master in some point, and in that I learn of him.”

“In my walks, every man I meet is my superior in some way, and in that I learn from him.”

“Is it not the true scholar the only true master?”

“Every[one] I meet is in some way my superior.”

“What is the scholar, what is the man for, but for hospitality to every new thought of his time? Have you leisure, power, property, friends? you shall be the asylum and patron of every new thought, every unproven opinion, every untried project, which proceeds out of good will and honest seeking. All the newspapers, all the tongues of to-day will of course at first defame what is noble; but you who hold not of to-day, not of the times, but of the Everlasting, are to stand for it: and the highest compliment, man ever receives from heaven, is the sending to him its disguised and discredited angels.”

“The world -- this shadow of the soul, or other me, lies wide around. Its attractions are the keys which unlock my thoughts and make me acquainted with myself. I run eagerly into this resounding tumult...So much only of life as I know by experience...The true scholar grudges every opportunity of action past by, as a loss of power.”

“We, as we read, must become Greeks, Romans, Turks, priest and king, martyr and executioner; must fasten these images to some reality in our secret experience, or we shall learn nothing rightly.”