Intercourse is the soul of progress. [ Charles Buxton ]

Sweet intercourse of looks and smiles; for smiles from reason flow. [ Milton ]

There is a god within us, and we have intercourse with heaven. That spirit comes from abodes on high. [ Ovid ]

The perfection of conversational intercourse is when the breeding of high life is animated by the fervor of genius. [ Leigh Hunt ]

A worthless man will always remain worthless, and a little mind will not, by daily intercourse with great minds, become an inch greater. [ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe ]

It is chiefly through books that we enjoy intercourse with superior minds; and these invaluable communications are within the reach of all. [ Mme. de Genlis ]

All these are elements of happiness - love of nature, acquaintance with the wide earth, congenial intercourse with superior minds, and abiding friendships. [ Charles W. Eliot ]

A frequent intercourse and intimate connection between two persons make them so like, that not only their dispositions are moulded like each other, but their very face and tone of voice contract a certain analogy. [ Lavater ]

I have remarked that those who love women most, and are most tender in their intercourse with them, are most inclined to speak ill of them, us if they could not forgive them for not being as irreproachable as they wish them to be. [ T. Gautier ]

Great men stand like solitary towers in the city of God, and secret passages running deep beneath external Nature give their thoughts intercourse with higher intelligences, which strengthens and consoles them, and of which the labourers on the surface do not even dream. [ Longfellow ]

It may be too much to expect that nations should be governed in their relations towards each other by the precepts of Christian morality, but surely it is not too much to ask that they should conform to the code of courtesy and good breeding recognized among gentlemen in the intercourse of social life. [ Geo. S. Hillard ]

An observant man, in all his intercourse with society and the world, carries a pencil constantly in his hand, and, unperceived, marks on every person and thing the figure expressive of its value, and therefore instantly on meeting that person or thing again, knows what kind and degree of attention to give it. This is to make something of experience. [ John Foster ]

Consistent characters are those which in social intercourse are easy, sure, and gentle. We do not clash with them, and they are never wanting nor contradictory to themselves; their stability incites confidence, their frankness induces self-surrendering openness. We feel at ease with them, we are not offended at their superiority, doubtless we admire them less, but we also hardly dream of feeling envious of them, and they seem almost to disdain malignity by the peaceful influence of their presence. [ Degerando ]

It is chiefly through books that we enjoy intercourse with superior minds. In the best books great men talk to us, give us their most precious thoughts, and pour their soul into ours. God be thanked for books; they are the voices of the distant and the dead, and make us heirs of the spiritual life of past ages. Books are the true levellers; they give to all, who will faithfully use them, the society, the spiritual presence, of the best and greatest of our race. No matter how poor I am, I shall not pine for want of intellectual companionship, and I may become a cultivated man, though excluded from what is called the best society in the place where I live. [ W. E. Channing ]