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"'Whatever our degree of friends may be, we come more under their influence than we are aware,' the trailblazing astronomer Maria Mitchell observed as she contemplated how we co-create each other and recreate ourselves in friendship. Her friend Ralph Waldo Emerson -- whom she taught to look through a telescope -- believed that all true friendship rests on two pillars. In his own life, he put the theory into practice in his friendship with his young protege Henry David Thoreau -- a solitary and achingly introverted person himself, who thought deeply and passionately about the rewards and challenges of friendship." Maria Popova shares more in this post.