I do then with my friends as I do with my books. I would have them where I can find them, but I seldom use them.
Interpretation
Friendship is valued for its availability, even if not frequently utilized.
In this quote, Emerson uses a comparison between friends and books to express the nature of his relationships. He appreciates having friends nearby and easily accessible but acknowledges that he does not engage with them often, highlighting a tendency to take friendships for granted while still valuing their presence in his life.
In practice
In a speech about maintaining connections, one could quote Emerson to emphasize the importance of having friends nearby.
It is plain that there is no separate essence called courage, no cup or cell in the brain, no vessel in the heart containing drops or atoms that make or give this virtue; but it is the right or healthy state of every man, when he is free to do that which is constitutional to him to do.
Few people have any next, they live from hand to mouth without a plan, and are always at the end of their line.
Men cease to interest us when we find their limitations
Tis the good reader that makes the good book; a good head cannot read amiss: in every book he finds passages which seem confidences or asides hidden from all else and unmistakeably meant for his ear.
The world belongs to the energetic.
Hast thou named all the birds without a gun?
There is a fellowship more quiet even than solitude, and which, rightly understood, is solitude made perfect.
Every record I have done was because I was a person's friend. The only time we did not continue to be friends was if the record did not become a hit. If it did, we became great friends.
One's friends are that part of the human race with which one can be human.
Friendship is born at that moment when one man says to another: "What! You too? I thought that no one but myself . . ."
There's something about losing friends, particularly young people, where it's not something that you get over. I don't believe there's a healing process.
We spoke of how to say good-bye,β Jem said. βWhen Jonathan bid farewell to David, he said, βGo in peace, for as much as we have sworn, both of us, saying the Lord be between me and thee, forever.β They did not see each other again, but they did not forget. So it will be with us. When I am Brother Zachariah, when I no longer see the world with my human eyes, I will still be in some part the Jem you knew, and I will see you with the eyes of my heart.
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