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But Are Sailors, Frequenters Of Fiddlers' Greens, Without Vices? No; But Less Often Than With Landsmen Do Their Vices, So Called, Partake Of Crookedness Of Heart, Seeming Less To Proceed From Viciousness Than Exuberance Of Vitality After Long Constraint: Frank Manifestations In Accordance With Natural Law.

-Herman Melville

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But Are Sailors, Frequenters

Herman Melville

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But Are Sailors, Frequenters Of Fiddlers' Greens, Without Vices? No; But Less Often Than With Landsmen Do Their Vices, So Called, Partake Of Crookedness Of Heart, Seeming Less To Proceed From Viciousness Than Exuberance Of Vitality After Long Constraint: Frank Manifestations In Accordance With Natural Law.

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Man Is A Money-making Animal, Which Propensity Too Often Interferes With His Benevolence.

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It Is Upon Record, That Three Centuries Ago The Tongue Of The Right Whale Was Esteemed A Great Delicacy In France, And Commanded Large Prices There.

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The Idea Of Jehovah Was Born Here... Out Of The Rude Elements Of The Insignificant Thoughts Thoughts That Are In All Men, They Reared The Transcendent Conception Of A God.

I Cherish The Greatest Respect Towards Everybody's Religious Obligations, No Matter How Comical.

Niggards Are Oftentimes Neat.

It Is The Easiest Thing In The World For A Man To Look As If He Had A Great Secret In Him.

...the Silent Reminiscence Of Hardships Departed, Is Sweeter Than The Presence Of Delight.

All We Discover Has Been With Us Since The Sun Began To Roll; And Much We Discover, Is Not Worth The Discovering.

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For Though Consciences Are As Unlike As Foreheads, Every Intelligence, Not Including The Scriptural Devils Who "believe And Tremble" Has One.

We Incline To Think That God Cannot Explain His Own Secrets And That He Would Like A Little Information Upon Certain Points Himself. We Mortals Astonish Him As Much As He Us. But It Is This Being Of The Matter; There Lies The Knot With Which We Choke Ourselves. As Soon As You Say Me, A God, A Nature, So Soon You Jump Off From Your Stool And Hang From The Beam. Yes, That Word Is The Hangman. Take God Out Of The Dictionary, And You Would Have Him In The Street.

Beware The People Weeping When They Bare The Iron Hand.

Flight From Tyranny Does Not Of Itself Insure A Safe Asylum, Far Less A Happy Home.

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In This World, Shipmates, Sin That Pays Its Way Can Travel Freely, And Without Passport; Whereas Virtue, If A Pauper, Is Stopped At All Frontiers.

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Love Is Both Creator's And Saviour's Gospel To Mankind; A Volume Bound In Rose-leaves, Clasped With Violets, And By The Beaks Of Humming-birds Printed With Peach-juice On The Leaves Of Lilies.

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Aye, Aye! And I'll Chase Him Round Good Hope, And Round The Horn, And Round The Norway Maelstrom, And Round Perdition's Flames Before I Give Him Up.

The American, Who Up To The Present Day, Has Evinced, In Literature, The Largest Brain With The Largest Heart, That Man Is Nathaniel Hawthorne.

My Body Is But The Lees Of My Better Being.

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A Man Of True Science... Thinks, That By Mouthing Hard Words, He Proves That He Understands Hard Things.

For, As When The Red-cheeked, Dancing Girls, April And May, Trip Home To The Wintry, Misanthropic Woods; Even The Barest, Ruggedest, Most Thunder-cloven Old Oak Will At Least Send Forth Some Few Green Sprouts, To Welcome Such Glad-hearted Visitants . . .

And, As For Me, If, By Any Possibility, There Be Any As Yet Undiscovered Prime Thing In Me; If I Shall Ever Deserve Any Real Repute In That Small But High Hushed World Which I Might Not Be Unreasonably Ambitious Of ; If Hereafter I Shall Do Anything That, Upon The Whole, A Man Might Rather Have Done Than To Have Left Undone ; If, At My Death, My Executors, Or More Properly My Creditors, Find Any Precious Mss. In My Desk, Then Here I Prospectively Ascribe All The Honour And The Glory To Whaling; For A Whale-ship Was My Yale College And My Harvard.

It Is Not The Purpose Of Literature To Purvey News. For News Consult The Almanac De Gotha.

For The Profit Of Travel: In The First Place, You Get Rid Of A Few Prejudices.... The Prejudiced Against Color Finds Several Hundred Millions Of People Of All Shades Of Color, And All Degrees Of Intellect, Rank, And Social Worth, Generals, Judges, Priests, And Kings, And Learns To Give Up His Foolish Prejudice.

Let Us Waive That Agitated National Topic, As To Whether Such Multitudes Of Foreign Poor Should Be Landed On Our American Shores;let Us Waive It, With The One Only Thought, That If They Can Get Here, They Have God's Right To Come.

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I Am A Man Who, From His Youth Upwards, Has Been Filled With A Profound Conviction That The Easiest Way Of Life Is The Best.

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As With Ships, So With Men; He Who Turns His Back To His Foe Gives Him An Advantage.

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To Produce A Mighty Book, You Must Choose A Mighty Theme.

Thrusted Light Is Worse Than Presented Pistols.

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Some Dying Men Are The Most Tyrannical; And Certainly, Since They Will Shortly Trouble Us So Little For Evermore, The Poor Fellows Ought To Be Indulged.

No Town-bred Dandy Will Compare With A Country-bred One- I Mean A Downright Bumpkin Dandy- A Fellow That, In The Dog-days Of Summer, Will Mow His Two Acres In Buckskin Gloves For Fear Of Tanning His Hands.

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...in Certain Moods, No Man Can Weigh This World Without Throwing In Something, Somehow Like Original Sin, To Strike The Uneven Balance.

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To Be Hated Cordially, Is Only A Left-handed Compliment.

Prayer Draws Us Near To Our Own Souls.

Struck Dead By An Angel Of God! Yet The Angel Must Hang!

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The Only True Infidelity Is For A Live Man To Vote Himself Dead.

They Talk Of The Dignity Of Work. The Dignity Is In Leisure.

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The World's A Ship On Its Voyage Out, And Not A Voyage Complete; And The Pulpit Is Its Prow.

How It Is I Know Not; But There Is No Place Like A Bed For Confidential Disclosures Between Friends. Man And Wife, They Say, There Open The Very Bottom Of Their Souls To Each Other; And Some Old Couples Often Lie And Chat Over Old Times Till Nearly Morning. Thus, Then, In Our Hearts' Honeymoon, Lay I And Queequeg - A Cosy, Loving Pair.

O Nature, And O Soul Of Man! How Far Beyond All Utterance Are Your Linked Analogies; Not The Smallest Atom Stirs Or Lives On Matter, But Has Its Cunning Duplicate In Mind.

He, Who, In View Of Its Inconsistencies, Says Of Human Nature The Same That, In View Of Its Contrasts, Is Said Of The Divine Nature, That It Is Past Finding Out, Thereby Evinces A Better Appreciation Of It Than He Who, By Always Representing It In A Clear Light, Leaves It To Be Inferred That He Clearly Knows All About It.

At Sea A Fellow Comes Out. Salt Water Is Like Wine, In That Respect.

The Great God Absolute! The Centre And Circumference Of All Democracy! His Omnipresence, Our Divine Equality!

The March Of Conquest Through Wild Provinces, May Be The March Of Mind; But Not The March Of Love.

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Our Souls Are Like Those Orphans Whose Unwedded Mothers Die In Bearing Them: The Secret Of Our Paternity Lies In Their Grave, And We Must There To Learn It.

When Beholding The Tranquil Beauty And Brilliancy Of The Ocean’s Skin, One Forgets The Tiger Heart That Pants Beneath It; And Would Not Willingly Remember That This Velvet Paw But Conceals A Remorseless Fang.

To Treat Of Human Actions Is To Deal Wholly With Second Causes.

But I Shall Follow The Endless, Winding Way, — The Flowing River In The Cave Of Man; Careless Whither I Be Led, Reckless Where I Land.

Contempt Is As Frequently Produced At First Sight As Love.

I Love To Sail Forbidden Seas, And Land On Barbarous Coasts.

Did All The Lets And Bars Appear To Every Just Or Larger End, Whence Should Come The Trust And Cheer? Youth Must Its Ignorant Impulse Lend-- Age Finds Place In The Rear. All Wars Are Boyish, And Are Fought By Boys, The Champions And Enthusiasts Of The State

Father Mapple Paused A Little; Then Kneeling In The Pulpit's Bows, Folded His Large Brown Hands Across His Chest, Uplifted His Closed Eyes, And Offered A Prayer So Deeply Devout That He Seemed Kneeling And Praying At The Bottom Of The Sea.

All Profound Things, And Emotions Of Things Are Preceded And Attended By Silence... Silence Is The General Consecration Of The Universe. Silence Is The Invisible Laying On Of The Divine Pontiff's Hands Upon The World. Silence Is At Once The Most Harmless And The Most Awful Thing In All Nature. It Speaks Of The Reserved Forces Of Fate. Silence Is The Only Voice Of Our God.

All Round And Round Does The World Lie As In A Sharp-shooter's Ambush, To Pick Off The Beautiful Illusions Of Youth, By The Pitiless Cracking Rifles Of The Realities Of Age.

Failure Is The Test Of Greatness.

All Men Live Enveloped In Whale-lines. All Are Born With Halters Round Their Necks; But It Is Only When Caught In The Swift, Sudden Turn Of Death, That Mortals Realize The Silent, Subtle, Ever-present Perils Of Life. And If You Be A Philosopher, Though Seated In The Whale-boat, You Would Not At Heart Feel One Whit More Of Terror, Than Though Seated Before Your Evening Fire With A Poker, And Not A Harpoon, By Your Side.

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To Be A Born American Citizen Seems A Guarantee Against Pauperism; And This, Perhaps, Springs From The Virtue Of A Vote.

A Whale Ship Was My Yale College And My Harvard.

There Is One Knows Not What Sweet Mystery About This Sea, Whose Gently Awful Stirrings Seem To Speak Of Some Hidden Soul Beneath.

Let America First Praise Mediocrity Even, In Her Children, Before She Praises... The Best Excellence In The Children Of Any Other Land.

Beneath Those Stars Is A Universe Of Gliding Monsters.

Aid My Disillusionment, My Friend!

Disillusionment

Personal Prudence, Even When Dictated By Quite Other Than Selfish Considerations, Surely Is No Special Virtue In A Military Man; While An Excessive Love Of Glory, Impassioning A Less Burning Impulse, The Honest Sense Of Duty, Is The First.

Why Is Almost Every Robust Healthy Boy With A Robust Healthy Soul In Him, At Some Time Or Other Crazy To Go To Sea? Why Upon Your First Voyage As A Passenger, Did You Yourself Feel Such A Mystical Vibration, When First Told That You And Your Ship Were Now Out Of Sight Of Land? Why Did The Old Persians Hold The Sea Holy? Why Did The Greeks Give It A Separate Deity, And Own Brother Of Jove? Surely All This Is Not Without Meaning.

Some Years Ago - Never Mind How Long Precisely - Having Little Or No Money In My Purse, And Nothing Particular To Interest Me On Shore, I Thought I Would Sail About A Little And See The Watery Part Of The World.

One Would Like To Know, What Were Foes Made For Except To Be Used?

You Cannot Spill A Drop Of American Blood Without Spilling The Blood Of The Whole World.... We Are Not A Nation, So Much As A World.

Leviathan Is Not The Biggest Fish; — I Have Heard Of Krakens.

Is Ahab, Ahab? Is It I, God, Or Who, That Lifts This Arm? But If The Great Sun Move Not Of Himself; But Is An Errand-boy In Heaven; Nor One Single Star Can Revolve, But By Some Invisible Power; How Then Can This One Small Heart Beat; This One Small Brain Think Thoughts; Unless God Does That Beating, Does That Thinking, Does That Living, And Not I.

Civilization Does Not Engross All The Virtues Of Humanity: She Has Not Even Her Full Share Of Them. They Flourish In Greater Abundance And Attain Greater Strength Among Many Barbarous People. The Hospitality Of The Wild Arab, The Courage Of The North American Indian, And The Faithful Friendships Of Some Of The Polynesian Nations, Far Surpass Any Thing Of A Similar Kind Among The Polished Communities Of Europe.

Familiarity With Danger Makes A Brave Man Braver, But Less Daring. Thus With Seamen: He Who Goes The Oftenest Round Cape Horn Goes The Most Circumspectly.

Failure Is The True Test Of Greatness

The Sailor Is Frankness, The Landsman Is Finesse. Life Is Not A Game With The Sailor, Demanding The Long Head

In Truth, A Mature Man Who Uses Hair Oil, Unless Medicinally, That Man Has Probably Got A Quoggy Spot In Him Somewhere.

True Work Is The Necessity Of Poor Humanity's Earthly Condition. The Dignity Is In Leisure. Besides, 99 Hundredths Of All The Work Done In The World Is Either Foolish And Unnecessary, Or Harmful And Wicked.

Stripped Of The Cunning Artifices Of The Tailor, And Standing Forth In The Garb Of Eden - What A Sorry Set Of Round-shouldered, Spindle-shanked, Crane-necked Varlets Would Civilized Men Appear!

Tis No Dishonor When He Who Would Dishonor You, Only Dishonors Himself.

All Visible Objects, Man, Are But As Pasteboard Masks. But In Each Event — In The Living Act, The Undoubted Deed — There, Some Unknown But Still Reasoning Thing Puts Forth The Mouldings Of Its Features From Behind The Unreasoning Mask.

Standing Navies, As Well As Standing Armies, Serve To Keep Alive The Spirit Of War Even In The Meek Heart Of Peace. In Its Very Embers And Smoulderings, They Nourish That Fatal Fire, And Half-pay Officers, As The Priests Of Mars, Yet Guard The Temple, Though No God Be There.

So Long As A Man-of-war Exists, It Must Ever Remain A Picture Of Much That Is Tyrannical And Repelling In Human Nature.

In This World Of Lies, Truth Is Forced To Fly Like A Scared White Doe In The Woodlands; And Only By Cunning Glimpses Will She Reveal Herself, As In Shakespeare And Other Masters Of The Great Art Of Telling The Truth, Even Though It Be Covertly, And By Snatches.

The Further Our Civilization Advances Upon Its Present Lines So Much The Cheaper Sort Of Thing Does "fame" Become, Especially Of The Literary Sort. This Species Of "fame" A Waggish Acquaintance Says Can Be Manufactured To Order, And Sometimes Is So Manufactured.

While Nature Thus Very Early And Very Abundantly Feeds Us, She Is Very Late In Tutoring Us As To The Proper Methodization Of Our Diet.

A Gentleman Of Typee Can Bring Up A Numerous Family Of Children And Give Them All A Highly Respectable Cannibal Education, With Infinitely Less Toil And Anxiety Than He Expends In The Simple Process Of Striking A Light; Whilst A Poor European Artisan, Who Through The Instrumentality Of A Lucifer Performs The Same Operation In One Second, Is Put To His Wits' End To Provide For His Starving Offspring That Food Which The Children Of A Polynesian Father, Without Troubling Their Parent, Pluck From The Branches Of Every Tree Around Them.

Aside From Higher Considerations, Charity Often Operates As A Vastly Wise And Prudent Principle-a Great Safeguard To Its Possessor. Men Have Committed Murder For Jealousy's Sake, And Anger's Sake, And Hatred's Sake, And Selfishness' Sake, And Spiritual Pride's Sake; But No Man That Ever I Heard Of, Ever Committed A Diabolical Murder For Sweet Charity's Sake. Mere Self-interest, Then, If No Better Motive Can Be Enlisted, Should, Especially With High-tempered Men, Prompt All Beings To Charity And Philanthropy.

There Never Was A Great Man Yet Who Spent All His Life Inland.

Bachelors Alone Can Travel Freely, And Without Any Twinges Of Their Consciences Touching Desertion Of The Fire-side.

Talk Not To Me Of Blasphemy, Man; I'd Strike The Sun If It Insulted Me.

Is There Some Principal Of Nature Which States That We Never Know The Quality Of What We Have Until It Is Gone?

The Shadows Of Things Are Greater Than Themselves; And The More Exaggerated The Shadow, The More Unlike The Substance.

Praise When Merited Is Not A Boon: Yet To A Generous Nature, Is It Pleasant To Utter It.

People Think That If A Man Has Undergone Any Hardship, He Should Have A Reward; But For My Part, If I Have Done The Hardest Possible Day's Work, And Then Come To Sit Down In A Corner And Eat My Supper Comfortably -why, Then I Don't Think I Deserve Any Reward For My Hard Day's Work -for Am I Not Now At Peace? Is Not My Supper Good?

Delight,--top-gallant Delight Is To Him, Who Acknowledges No Law Or Lord, But The Lord His God, And Is Only A Patriot To Heaven.

...a Man Of True Science Uses Few Hard Words, And Those Only When None Other Will Answer His Purpose; Where As The Smatterer In Science...thinks That By Mouthing Hard Words He Understands Hard Things.

If Not Against Us, Nature Is Not For Us.

Forty Years After A Battle It Is Easy For A Non-combatant To Reason About How It Ought To Have Been Fought. It Is Another Thing Personally And Under Fire To Direct The Fighting While Involved In The Obscuring Smoke Of It.

He Who Is Ready To Despair In Solitary Peril, Plucks Up A Heart In The Presence Of Another. In A Plurality Of Comrades Is Much Countenance And Consolation.

The Man's (a Heathen South Sea Islander) A Human Being, Just As I Am; He Has Just As Much Reason To Fear Me, As I Have To Be Afraid Of Him. Better Sleep With A Sober Cannibal Than A Drunken Christian.

If There Be Any Thing A Man Might Well Pray Against, That Thing Is The Responsive Gratification Of Some Of The Devoutest Prayers Of His Youth.

To Certain Temperaments, Especially When Previously Agitated By Any Deep Feeling, There Is Perhaps Nothing More Exasperating, Andwhich Sooner Explodes All Self-command, Than The Coarse, Jeering Insolence Of A Porter, Cabman, Or Hack-driver.

The Worst Of Our Evils We Blindly Inflict Upon Ourselves; Our Officers Cannot Remove Them, Even If They Would.

What Man Who Carries A Heavenly Soul In Him, Has Not Groaned To Perceive, That Unless He Committed A Sort Of Suicide As To The Practical Things Of This World, He Never Can Hope To Regulate His Earthly Conduct By That Same Heavenly Soul?

For God's Sake, Be Economical With Your Lamps And Candles! Not A Gallon You Burn, But At Least One Drop Of Man's Blood Was Spilled For It.

We May Have Civilized Bodies And Yet Barbarous Souls.

The Anglo-saxon Hive Have Extirpated Paganism From The Greater Part Of The North American Continent; But With It They Have Likewise Extirpated The Greater Portion Of The Red Race. Civilization Is Gradually Sweeping From The Earth The Lingering Vestiges Of Paganism, And At The Same Time The Shrinking Forms Of Its Unhappy Worshippers.

Youth Is The Time When Hearts Are Large.

See With What Entire Freedom The Whaleman Takes His Handful Of Lamps-often But Old Bottles And Vials, Though. ... He Burns, Too, The Purest Of Oil. ... It Is Sweet As Early Grass Butter In April. He Goes And Hunts For His Oil, So As To Be Sure Of Its Freshness And Genuineness, Even As The Traveler On The Prairie Hunts Up His Own Supper Of Game.

Think Of It. To Go Down To Posterity As A 'man Who Lived Among The Cannibals.'

In Placid Hours Well-pleased We Dream Of Many A Brave Unbodied Scheme. But Form To Lend, Pulsed Life Create, What Unlike Things Must Meet And Mate: A Flame To Melt--a Wind To Freeze; Sad Patience--joyous Energies; Humility--yet Pride And Scorn; Instinct And Study; Love And Hate; Audacity--reverence. These Must Mate, And Fuse With Jacob's Mystic Heart, To Wrestle With The Angel--art.

It Is With Fiction As With Religion: It Should Present Another World, And Yet One To Which We Feel The Tie.

There Is No Champollion To Decipher The Egypt Of Every Man's And Every Being's Face. Physiognomy, Like Every Other Human Science,is But A Passing Fable.

The Pulpit Is Ever This Earth's Foremost Part; All The Rest Comes In Its Rear; The Pulpit Leads The World. From Thence It Is The Storm Of God's Quick Wrath Is First Descried, And The Bow Must Bearthe Earliest Brunt. From Thence It Is The God Of Breezes Fair Or Foul Is First Invokedfor Favorable Winds. Yes, The World's A Ship On Its Passage Out, And Not A Voyage Complete; And The Pulpit Is Its Prow.

Is It Possible, After All, That Spite Of Bricks And Shaven Faces, This World We Live In Is Brimmed With Wonders, And I And All Mankind, Beneath Our Garbs Of Common-placeness, Conceal Enigmas That The Stars Themselves, And Perhaps The Highest Seraphim Can Not Resolve?

The Man That Has Anything Bountifully Laughable About Him, Be Sure There Is More In That Man Than You Perhaps Think For.

Say What Some Poets Will, Nature Is Not So Much Her Own Ever-sweet Interpreter, As The Mere Supplier Of That Cunning Alphabet, Whereby Selecting And Combining As He Pleases, Each Man Reads His Own Peculiar Lesson According To His Own Peculiar Mind And Mood.

Truth Is In Things, And Not In Words.

There Is Sorrow In The World, But Goodness Too; And Goodness That Is Not Greenness, Either, No More Than Sorrow Is.

For In Tremendous Extremities Human Souls Are Like Drowning Men; Well Enough They Know They Are In Peril; Well Enough They Know The Causes Of That Peril;--nevertheless, The Sea Is The Sea, And These Drowning Men Do Drown.

Do Not Presume, Well-housed, Well-warmed, And Well-fed, To Criticize The Poor

Madman! Look Through My Eyes If Thou Hast None Of Thine Own.

Where Do Murderers Go, Man! Who's To Doom, When The Judge Himself Is Dragged To The Bar?

Immortality Is But Ubiquity In Time.

Ignorance Is The Father Of All Fear.

We Are Off! The Courses And Topsails Are Set: The Coral-hung Anchor Swings From The Bow: And Together, The Three Royals Are Given To The Breeze, That Follows Us Out To Sea Like The Baying Of A Hound.

We Cannot Live Only For Ourselves. A Thousand Fibers Connect Us With Our Fellow Men.

When A Companion's Heart Of Itself Overflows, The Best One Can Do Is To Do Nothing.

Are Not Half Our Lives Spent In Reproaches For Foregone Actions, Of The True Nature And Consequences Of Which We Were Wholly Ignorant At The Time?

Heaven Have Mercy On Us All - Presbyterians And Pagans Alike - For We Are All Somehow Dreadfully Cracked About The Head, And Sadly Need Mending.

A Book In A Man's Brain Is Better Off Than A Book Bound In Calf - At Any Rate It Is Safer From Criticism.

Love's Secrets, Being Mysteries, Ever Pertain To The Transcendent And The Infinite; And So They Are As Airy Bridges, By Which Ourfurther Shadows Pass Over Into The Regions Of The Golden Mists And Exhalations; Whence All Poetical, Lovely Thoughts Are Engendered, And Drop Into Us, As Though Pearls Should Drop From Rainbows.

It Is Well Known, That The Best Productions Of The Best Human Intellects, Are Generally Regarded By Those Intellects As Mere Immature Freshman Exercises, Wholly Worthless In Themselves, Except As Initiatives For Entering The Great University Of God After Death.

Toil Is Man's Allotment; Toil Of Brain, Or Toil Of Hands, Or A Grief That's More Than Either, The Grief And Sin Of Idleness.

Let Us Only Hate Hatred; And Once Give Love A Play, We Will Fall In Love With A Unicorn.

Can It Be, That The Greek Grammarians Invented Their Dual Number For The Particular Benefit Of Twins?

An Intense Copper Calm, Like A Universal Yellow Lotus, Was More And More Unfolding Its Noiseless Measureless Leaves Upon The Sea.

The Phantom-host Has Faded Quite, Splendor And Terror Gone-- Portent Or Promise--and Gives Way To Pale, Meek Dawn.

What We Take To Be Our Strongest Tower Of Delight, Only Stands At The Caprice Of The Minutest Event The Falling Of A Leaf, The Hearing Of A Voice, Or The Receipt Of One Little Bit Of Paper Scratched Over With A Few Small Characters By A Sharpened Feather.

There Are Two Places In The World Where Men Can Most Effectively Disappear - The City Of London And The South Seas.

There Are Doubts, Sir, Which, If Man Have Them, It Is Not Man That Can Solve Them.

In The Operative Opinion Of The World, He Who Is Already Fully Provided With What Is Necessary For Him, That Man Shall Have More;while He Who Is Deplorably Destitute Of The Same, He Shall Have Taken Away From Him Even That Which He Hath. Yet The World Vows It Is A Very Plain, Downright Matter-of-fact, Plodding, Humane Sort Of World.

Courage Is The Most Common And Vulgar Of The Virtues.

It Is Not Down In Any Map; True Places Never Are.

But When That Smoking Chowder Came In, The Mystery Was Delightfully Explained. Oh! Sweet Friends, Hearken To Me. It Was Made Of Small Juicy Clams, Scarcely Bigger Than Hazel Nuts, Mixed With Pounded Ship Biscuits And Salted Pork Cut Up Into Little Flakes! The Whole Enriched With Butter, And Plentifully Seasoned With Pepper And Salt... We Dispatched It With Great Expedition.

Of All Insults, The Temporary Condescension Of A Master To A Slave Is The Most Outrageous And Galling. That Potentate Who Most Condescends, Mark Him Well; For That Potentate, If Occasion Come, Will Prove Your Uttermost Tyrant.

God Is Liberal Of Color; So Should Man Be.

To A Sensitive Being, Pity Is Not Seldom Pain.

If Some Books Are Deemed Most Baneful And Their Sale Forbid, How Then With Deadlier Facts, Not Dreams Of Doting Men? Those Whom Books Will Hurt Will Not Be Proof Against Events. Events, Not Books Should Be Forbid.

When I Think Of This Life I Have Led; The Desolation Of Solitude It Has Been; The Masoned, Walled-town Of A Captain's Exclusiveness, Which Admits But Small Entrance To Any Sympathy From The Green Country Without - Oh, Weariness! Heaviness! Guinea-coast Slavery Of Solitary Command!

A Hermitage In The Forest Is The Refuge Of The Narrow-minded Misanthrope; A Hammock On The Ocean Is The Asylum For The Generous Distressed.

The Starred And Stately Nights Seemed Haughty Dames In Jewelled Velvets, Nursing At Home In Lonely Pride, The Memory Of Their Absent Conquering Earls, The Golden Helmeted Suns!

Why, Ever Since Adam, Who Has Got To The Meaning Of This Great Allegory - The World? Then We Pygmies Must Be Content To Have Out Paper Allegories But Ill Comprehended.

It Is-or Seems To Be-a Wise Sort Of Thing, To Realise That All That Happens To A Man In This Life Is Only By Way Of Joke, Especially His Misfortunes, If He Have Them. And It Is Also Worth Bearing In Mind, That The Joke Is Passed Round Pretty Liberally & Impartially, So That Not Very Many Are Entitled To Fancy That They In Particular Are Getting The Worst Of It.

Amity Itself Can Only Be Maintained By Reciprocal Respect, And True Friends Are Punctilious Equals.

Whenever I Find Myself Growing Grim About The Mouth; Whenever It Is A Damp, Drizzly November In My Soul; Whenever I Find Myself Involuntarily Pausing Before Coffin Warehouses, And Bringing Up The Rear Of Every Funeral I Meet; And Especially Whenever My Hypos Get Such An Upper Hand Of Me, That It Requires A Strong Moral Principle To Prevent Me From Deliberately Stepping Into The Street, And Methodically Knocking People's Hats Off - Then, I Account It High Time To Get To Sea As Soon As I Can.

He Says No! In Thunder; But The Devil Himself Cannot Make Him Say Yes.

There Is Something Wrong About The Man Who Wants Help. There Is Somewhere A Deep Defect, A Want, In Brief, A Need, A Crying Need, Somewhere About That Man.

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Marcus Aurelius

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