From Emerson's Essays, by Ralph Waldo Emerson
Our intellectual and active powers increase with our affection. The scholar sits down to write, and all his years of meditation do not furnish him with one good thought or happy expression; but it is necessary to write a letter to a friend, and forthwith troops of gentle thoughts invest themselves, on every hand, with chosen words. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Friendship", p. 101