For solitude is a virtue with us, as a sublime bent and bias to purity, which divines that in the contact of man and man--"in society"-- it must be unavoidably impure.

All society makes one somehow, somewhere, or sometime--"commonplace." 285.

The greatest events and thoughts--the greatest thoughts, however, are the greatest events--are longest in being comprehended: the generations which are contemporary with them do not EXPERIENCE such events--they live past them.

Something happens there as in the realm of stars.

The light of the furthest stars is longest in reaching man; and before it has arrived man DENIES--that there are stars there.