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But The Past Is Passed; Why Moralize Upon It? Forget It. See, Yon Bright Son Has Forgotten It All, And The Blue Sea, And The Blue Sky; These Have Turned Over New Leaves. Because They Have No Memory . . . Because They Are Not Human.

-Herman Melville

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But The Past Is

Herman Melville

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But The Past Is Passed; Why Moralize Upon It? Forget It. See, Yon Bright Son Has Forgotten It All, And The Blue Sea, And The Blue Sky; These Have Turned Over New Leaves. Because They Have No Memory . . . Because They Are Not Human.

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But Captain Vere Was Now Again Motionless, Standing Absorbed In Thought. Again Starting, He Vehemently Exclaimed, "struck Dead By An Angel Of God! Yet That Angel Must Hang!

Consider The Subtleness Of The Sea; How Its Most Dreaded Creatures Glide Under Water, Unapparent For The Most Part, And Treacherously Hidden Beneath The Loveliest Tints Of Azure..... Consider All This; And Then Turn To This Green, Gentle , And Most Docile Earth; Consider Them Both, The Sea And The Land; And Do You Not Find A Strange Analogy To Something In Yourself?

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

For Whatever Is Truly Wondrous And Fearful In Man, Never Yet Was Put Into Words Or Books.

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

All Experience Teaches That, Whenever There Is A Great National Establishment, Employing Large Numbers Of Officials, The Public Must Be Reconciled To Support Many Incompetent Men; For Such Is The Favoritism And Nepotism Always Prevailing In The Purlieus Of These Establishments, That Some Incompetent Persons Are Always Admitted, To The Exclusion Of Many Of The Worthy.

If You Are Poor, Avoid Wine As A Costly Luxury; If You Are Rich, Shun It As A Fatal Indulgence. Stick To Plain Water.

The Pleasure Of Leaving Home, Care-free, With No Concern But To Enjoy, Has Also As A Pendant The Pleasure Of Coming Back To The Old Hearthstone, The Home To Which, However Traveled, The Heart Still Fondly Turns, Ignoring The Burden Of Its Anxieties And Cares.

Contempt Is As Frequently Produced At First Sight As Love.

The Navy Is The Asylum For The Perverse, The Home Of The Unfortunate. Here The Sons Of Adversity Meet The Children Of Calamity, And Here The Children Of Calamity Meet The Offspring Of Sin.

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

Book! You Lie There; The Fact Is, You Books Must Know Your Places. You'll Do To Give Us The Bare Words And Facts, But We Come In To Supply The Thoughts.

Ladies Are Like Creeds; If You Cannot Speak Well Of Them, Say Nothing.

No Mercy, No Power But Its Own Controls It. Panting And Snorting Like A Mad Battle Steed That Has Lost Its Rider, The Masterless Ocean Overruns The Globe.

Who In The Rainbow Can Draw The Line Where The Violet Tint Ends And The Orange Tint Begins?

Poor People Make A Very Poor Business Of It When They Try To Seem Rich.

And Yet Self-knowledge Is Thought By Some Not So Easy. Who Knows, My Dear Sir, But For A Time You May Have Taken Yourself For Somebody Else? Stranger Things Have Happened.

The Names Of All Fine Authors Are Fictitious Ones, Far More So Than That Of Junius,--simply Standing, As They Do, For The Mystical, Ever-eluding Spirit Of All Beauty, Which Ubiquitously Possesses Men Of Genius.

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

Youth Is The Time When Hearts Are Large, And Stirring Wars Appeal To The Spirit Which Appeals In Turn To The Blade It Draws.

No Philosophers So Thoroughly Comprehend Us As Dogs And Horses.

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.

My Body Is But The Lees Of My Better Being.

Is He Mad? Anyway There's Something On His Mind, As Sure As There Must Be Something On A Deck When It Cracks.

We Talk Of The Turks, And Abhor The Cannibals; But May Not Some Of Them, Go To Heaven, Before Some Of Us?

Hell Is An Idea First Born On An Undigested Apple Dumpling.

Art Is The Objectification Of Feeling.

Nothing So Aggravates An Earnest Person As A Passive Resistance.

Passive Resistance

Nearly All Literature, In One Sense, Is Made Up Of Guide-books. Old Ones Tell Us The Ways Our Fathers Went, Through The Thoroughfares And Courts Of Old; But How Few Of Those Former Places Can Their Posterity Trace, Amid Avenues Of Modern Erections; To How Few Is The Old Guide-book Now A Clew! Every Age Makes Its Own Guide-books, And The Old Ones Are Used For Waste Paper.

We Are Not A Nation, So Much As A World; For Unless We Claim All The World For Our Sire, Like Melchisedec, We Are Without Father Or Mother.

But The Might-have-been Is But Boggy Ground To Build Upon.

Might Have Been

Mystery Is In The Morning, And Mystery In The Night, And The Beauty Of Mystery Is Everywhere; But Still The Plain Truth Remains, That Mouth And Purse Must Be Filled.

One Trembles To Think Of That Mysterious Thing In The Soul, Which Seems To Acknowledge No Human Jurisdiction, But In Spite Of The Individual's Own Innocence Self, Will Still Dream Horrid Dreams, And Mutter Unmentionable Thoughts.

Passion, And Passion In Its Profoundest, Is Not A Thing Demanding A Palatial Stage Whereon To Play Its Part. Down Among The Groundlings, Among The Beggars And Rakers Of The Garbage, Profound Passion Is Enacted. And The Circumstances That Provoke It, However Trivial Or Mean, Are No Measure Of Its Power. In The Present Instance The Stage Is A Scrubbed Gun Deck, And One Of The External Provocations A Man-of-war's-man's Spilled Soup.

However Baby Man May Brag Of His Science And Skill, And However Much, In A Flattering Future, That Science And Skill May Augment; Yet For Ever And For Ever, To The Crack Of Doom, The Sea Will Insult And Murder Him, And Pulverize The Stateliest, Stiffest Frigate He Can Make; Nevertheless, By The Continual Repetition Of These Very Impressions, Man Has Lost That Sense Of The Full Awfulness Of The Sea Which Aboriginally Belongs To It.

I'll Try A Pagan Friend, Thought I, Since Christian Kindness Has Proved But Hollow Courtesy.

Both The Ancestry And Posterity Of Grief Go Further Than The Ancestry And Posterity Of Joy.

Warmest Climes But Nurse The Cruellest Fangs: The Tiger Of Bengal Crouches In Spiced Groves Of Ceaseless Verdure. Skies The Most Effulgent But Basket The Deadliest Thunders: Gorgeous Cuba Knows Tornadoes That Never Swept Tame Northern Lands.

Genius Is Full Of Trash.

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.

I Am Sorry To Say We Whites Have A Sad Reputation Among Many Of The Polynesians. The Natives Of These Islands Are Naturally Of A Kindly And Hospitable Temper, But There Has Been Implanted Among Them An Almost Instinctive Hate Of The White Man. They Esteem Us, With Rare Exceptions, Such As Some Of The Missionaries, The Most Barbarous, Treacherous, Irreligious, And Devilish Creatures On The Earth.

It Is A Thing Which Every Sensible American Should Learn From Every Sensible Englishman, That Glare And Glitter, Gimcracks And Gewgaws, Are Not Indispensable To Domestic Solacement.

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.

How Feeble Is All Language To Describe The Horrors We Inflict Upon These Wretches, Whom We Mason Up In The Cells Of Our Prisons, And Condemn To Perpetual Solitude In The Very Heart Of Our Population.

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.

If You Can Get Nothing Better Out Of The World, Get A Good Dinner Out Of It, At Least.

Let Us Be Christians Toward Our Fellow-whites, As Well As Philanthropists Toward The Blacks Our Fellow-men. In All Things, And Toward All, We Are Enjoined To Do As We Would Be Done By.

The Lightning Flashes Through My Skull; Mine Eyeballs Ache And Ache; My Whole Beaten Brain Seems As Beheaded, And Rolling On Some Stunning Ground.

For Small Erections May Be Finished By Their First Architects; Grand Ones, True Ones, Ever Leave The Copestone To Posterity. God Keep Me From Ever Completing Anything. This Whole Book Is But A Draught—nay, But The Draught Of A Draught. Oh, Time, Strength, Cash, And Patience!

I Am Madness Maddened! That Wild Madness That's Only Calm To Comprehend Itself

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.

All Profound Things, And Emotions Of Things Are Preceded And Attended By Silence.

True Places Are Not Found On Maps.

The Sun Hides Not The Ocean, Which Is The Dark Side Of This Earth, And Which Is Two Thirds Of This Earth. So, Therefore, That Mortal Man Who Hath More Of Joy Than Sorrow In Him, That Mortal Man Cannot Be True-- Not True, Or Undeveloped. With Books The Same. The Truest Of All Men Was The Man Of Sorrows, And The Truest Of All Books Is Solomon’s, And Ecclesiastes Is The Fine Hammered Steel Of Woe.

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

Stay True To The Dreams Of Thy Youth.

Whatever Has Made, Or Does Make, Or May Make Music, Should Be Held Sacred As The Golden Bridle-bit Of The Shah Of Persia's Horse,and The Golden Hammer, With Which His Hoofs Are Shod.

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.

If Shakespeare Has Not Been Equalled, He Is Sure To Be Surpassed, And Surpassed By An American Born Now Or Yet To Be Born.

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

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

We May Have Civilized Bodies And Yet Barbarous Souls.

And So, Through All The Thick Mists Of The Dim Doubts In My Mind, Divine Intuitions Now And Then Shoot, Enkindling My Fog With A Heavenly Ray. And For This I Thank God; For All Have Doubts; Many Deny; But Doubts Or Denials, Few Along With Them, Have Intuitions. Doubts Of All Things Earthly, And Intuitions Of Some Things Heavenly; This Combination Makes Neither Believer Nor Infidel, But Makes A Man Who Regards Them Both With Equal Eye.

He Who Has Never Failed Somewhere, That Man Can Not Be Great.

One Of The Coolest And Wisest Hours A Man Has, Is Just After He Awakes In The Morning.

Ah, Bartleby! Ah, Humanity!

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

Thrusted Light Is Worse Than Presented Pistols.

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.

All Mankind, Not Excluding Americans, Are Sinners--miserable Sinners, As Even No Few Bostonians Themselves Nowadays Contritely Respond In The Liturgy.

The Friendship Of Fine-hearted, Generous Boys, Nurtured Amid The Romance-engendering Comforts And Elegancies Of Life, Sometimes Transcends The Bounds Of Mere Boyishness, And Revels For A While In The Empyrean Of A Love Which Only Comes Short, By One Degree, Of The Sweetest Sentiment Entertained Between The Sexes.

God Is Liberal Of Color; So Should Man Be.

Death Is Only A Launching Into The Region Of The Strange Untried; It Is But The First Salutation To The Possibilities Of The Immense Remote, The Wild, The Watery, The Unshored.

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.

So, When On One Side You Hoist In Locke's Head, You Go Over That Way; But Now, On The Other Side, Hoist In Kant's And You Come Back Again; But In Very Poor Plight. Thus, Some Minds For Ever Keep Trimming Boat. Oh, Ye Foolish! Throw All These Thunder-heads Overboard, And Then You Will Float Light And Right.

Because No Man Can Ever Feel His Own Identity Aright Except His Eyes Be Closed; As If Darkness Were Indeed The Proper Element Of Our Essences, Though Light Be More Congenial To Our Clayey Part.

I Will Frankly Confess That After Passing A Few Weeks In The Valley Of The Marquesas, I Formed A Higher Estimate Of Human Nature Than I Had Ever Before Entertained. But, Alas, Since Then I Have Been One Of The Crew Of A Man-of- War, And The Pent-up Wickedness Of Five Hundred Men Has Nearly Overturned All My Previous Theories.

For There Is No Folly Of The Beast Of The Earth Which Is Not Infinitely Outdone By The Madness Of Men

It Is Only When Caught In The Swift, Sudden Turn Of Death, That Mortals Realise The Silent, Subtle, Ever-present Perils Of Life.

Woe To Him Whom This World Charms From Gospel Duty. Woe To Him Who Seeks To Pour Oil Upon The Waters When God Has Brewed Them Into A Gale. Woe To Him Who Seeks To Please Rather Than To Appal. Woe To Him Whose Good Name Is More To Him Than Goodness. Woe To Him Who, In This World, Courts Not Dishonor! Woe To Him Who Would Not Be True, Even Though To Be False Were Salvation. Yea, Woe To Him Who, As The Great Pilot Paul Has It, While Preaching To Others Is Himself A Castaway.

To Produce A Mighty Book, You Must Choose A Mighty Theme. No Great And Enduring Volume Can Ever Be Written On The Flea, Though Many There Be That Have Tried It.

Time Is Made Up Of Various Ages; And Each Thinks Its Own A Novelty.

As A Man-of-war That Sails Through The Sea, So This Earth That Sails Through The Air. We Mortals Are All On Board A Fast-sailing,never-sinking World-frigate, Of Which God Was The Shipwright; And She Is But One Craft In A Milky-way Fleet, Of Which God Is The Lord High Admiral.

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

For All His Tattooings He Was On The Whole A Clean, Comely Looking Cannibal.

The Grand Points In Human Nature Are The Same To-day They Were A Thousand Years Ago. The Only Variability In Them Is In Expression, Not In Feature.

Niggards Are Oftentimes Neat.

A Man Can Be Honest In Any Sort Of Skin.

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.

Students Of History Are Horror-struck At The Massacres Of Old; But In The Shambles, Men Are Being Murdered To-day.

Charity, Like Poetry, Should Be Cultivated, If Only For Its Being Graceful.

Failure Is The True Test Of Greatness

In Their Precise Tracings-out And Subtle Causations, The Strongest And Fieriest Emotions Of Life Defy All Analytical Insight.

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

In Armies, Navies, Cities, Or Families, In Nature Herself, Nothing More Relaxes Good Order Than Misery.

Human Madness Is Oftentimes A Cunning And Most Feline Thing

In One Word, Queequeg, Said I, Rather Digressively; Hell Is An Idea First Born On An Undigested Apple-dumpling; And Since Then Perpetuated Through The Hereditary Dyspepsias Nurtured By Ramadans.

Ignorance Is The Father Of All Fear.

It Is Hard To Be Finite Upon An Infinite Subject, And All Subjects Are Infinite.

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.

Those Peculiar Social Sensibilities Nourished By Our Own Peculiar Political Principles, While They Enhance The True Dignity Of A Prosperous American, Do But Minister To The Added Wretchedness Of The Unfortunate; First, By Prohibiting Their Acceptance Of What Little Random Relief Charity May Offer; And, Second, By Furnishing Them With The Keenest Appreciation Of The Smarting Distinction Between Their Ideal Of Universal Equality And Their Grind-stone Experience Of The Practical Misery And Infamy Of Poverty.

There Is No Quality In This World That Is Not What It Is Merely By Contrast. Nothing Exists In Itself.

There Are Some Persons In This World, Who, Unable To Give Better Proof Of Being Wise, Take A Strange Delight In Showing What They Think They Have Sagaciously Read In Mankind By Uncharitable Suspicions Of Them.

Indolence Is Heaven 's Ally Here, And Energy The Child Of Hell : The Good Man Pouring From His Pitcher Clear But Brims The Poisoned Well.

Let America Add Mexico To Texas, And Pile Cuba Upon Canada; Let The English Overswarm All India, And Hang Out Their Blazing Banner From The Sun; Two Thirds Of This Terraqueous Globe Are The Nantucketer's. For The Sea Is His; He Owns It.

To A Sensitive Being, Pity Is Not Seldom Pain.

Though The Ancients Were Ignorant Of The Principles Of Christianity There Were In Them The Germs Of Its Spirit.

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

At Last The Anchor Was Up, The Sails Were Set, And Off We Glided. It Was A Sharp, Cold Christmas; And As The Short Northern Day Merged Into Night, We Found Ourselves Almost Broad Upon The Wintry Ocean, Whose Freezing Spray Cased Us In Ice, As In Polished Armor.

Think Not, Is My Eleventh Commandment; And Sleep When You Can, Is My Twelfth.

But Even So, Amid The Tornadoed Atlantic Of My Being, Do I Myself Still For Ever Centrally Disport In Mute Calm; And While Ponderous Planets Of Unwaning Woe Revolve Round Me, Deep Down And Deep Inland There I Still Bathe Me In Eternal Mildness Of Joy.

Any Appellative At All Savouring Of Arbitrary Rank Is Unsuitable To A Man Of Liberal And Catholic Mind.

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.

In Our Man-of-war World, Life Comes In At One Gangway And Death Goes Overboard At The Other. Under The Man-of-war Scourge, Cursesmix With Tears; And The Sigh And The Sob Furnish The Bass To The Shrill Octave Of Those Who Laugh To Drown Buried Griefs Of Their Own.

Thou Wine Art The Friend Of The Friendless, Though A Foe To All.

Know, Thou, That The Lines That Live Are Turned Out Of A Furrowed Brow.

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

I Don't Know But A Book In A Man's Brain Is Better Off Than A Book Bound In Calf--at Any Rate It Is Safer From Criticism. And Taking A Book Off The Brain, Is Akin To The Ticklish & Dangerous Business Of Taking An Old Painting Off A Panel--you Have To Scrape Off The Whole Brain In Order To Get At It With Due Safety--& Even Then, The Painting May Not Be Worth The Trouble.

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

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.

And What Is It, Thought I, After All! It’s Only His Outside; A Man Can Be Honest In Any Sort Of Skin.

Whenever We Discover A Dislike In Us, Toward Any One, We Should Ever Be A Little Suspicious Of Ourselves.

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.

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.

Doesn't The Devil Live Forever; Who Ever Heard That The Devil Was Dead? Did You Ever See Any Person Wearing Mourning For The Devil?

A Noble Craft, But Somehow A Most Melancholy! All Noble Things Are Touched With That.

Give Me A Condor's Quill! Give Me Vesuvius Crater For An Inkstand!

But When A Man Suspects Any Wrong It Sometimes Happens That If He Be Already Involved In The Matter He Insensibly Strives To Cover Up His Suspicions Even From Himself. And Much This Way It Was With Me. I Said Nothing And Tried To Think Nothing.

The Urbane Activity With Which A Man Receives Money Is Really Marvelous, Considering That We So Earnestly Believe Money To Be The Root Of All Earthly Ills, And That On No Account Can A Monied Man Enter Heaven. Ah! How Cheerfully We Consign Ourselves To Perdition!

I Baptize You Not In The Name Of The Father, But In The Name Of The Devil. (ego Baptizo Te In Nomine Patris, Sed In Nomine Diaboli.)

The Reason The Mass Of Men Fear God, And At Bottom Dislike Him, Is Because They Rather Distrust His Heart, And Fancy Him All Brain Like A Watch. (you Perceive I Employ A Capital Initial In The Pronoun Referring To The Deity; Don't You Think There Is A Slight Dash Of Flunkeyism In That Usage?).

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.

There Is No Figure More Common In Scripture, And None More Beautiful, Than That By Which Christ Is Likened Unto Light. Incomprehensible In Its Nature, Itself The First Visible, And That By Which All Things Are Seen, Light Represents To Us Christ. Whose Generation None Can Declare, But Who Must Shine Upon Us Ere We Can Know Aught Aright, Whether Of Things Divine Or Human.

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

When My Eye Rested On An Arid Height, Spirit Partook Of The Barrenness. - Heartily Wish Niebuhr & Strauss To The Dogs. The Deuce Take Their Penetration & Acumen. They Have Robbed Us Of The Bloom.

A Smile Is The Chosen Vehicle Of All Ambiguities.

There Is All Of The Difference In The World Between Paying And Being Paid.

The Past Is The Textbook Of Tyrants; The Future Is The Bible Of The Free.

I Have No Objection To Any Person's Religion, Be It What It May, So Long As That Person Does Not Kill Or Insult Any Other Person, Because That Other Person Don't Believe It Also. But When A Man's Religion Becomes Really Frantic; When It Is A Positive Torment To Him; And, In Fine, Makes This Earth Of Ours An Uncomfortable Inn To Lodge In; Then I Think It High Time To Take That Individual Aside And Argue The Point With Him.

He Who Has Never Failed Somewhere, That Man Can Not Be Great. Failure Is The True Test Of Greatness. And If It Be Said, That Continual Success Is A Proof That A Man Wisely Knows His Powers,--it Is Only To Be Added, That, In That Case, He Knows Them To Be Small.

I Know Not All That May Be Coming, But Be It What It Will, I'll Go To It Laughing.

Let Me Look Into A Human Eye; It Is Better Than To Gaze Into Sea Or Sky; Better Than To Gaze Upon God.

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.

I Am Tormented With An Everlasting Itch For Things Remote. I Love To Sail Forbidden Seas.

We Should, If Possible, Prove A Teacher To Posterity, Instead Of Being The Pupil Of By-gone Generations. More Shall Come After Us Than Have Gone Before; The World Is Not Yet Middle-aged.

Courage Is The Most Common And Vulgar Of The Virtues.

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

The Symmetry Of Form Attainable In Pure Fiction Can Not So Readily Be Achieved In A Narration Essentially Having Less To Do With Fable Than With Fact. Truth Uncompromisingly Told Will Always Have Its Ragged Edges.

Were Civilization Itself To Be Estimated By Some Of Its Results, It Would Seem Perhaps Better For What We Call The Barbarous Part Of The World To Remain Unchanged.

You Cannot Hide The Soul.

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.

In Thoughts Of The Visions Of The Night, I Saw Long Rows Of Angels In Paradise, Each With His Hands In A Jar Of Spermaceti.

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.

I Will Live And Die By This Testimony: That I Loved A Good Conscience; That I Never Invaded Another Man's Liberty; And That I Preserved My Own.

Youth Is Immortal; Tis The Elderly Only Grow Old!

The Dinner-hour Is The Summer Of The Day: Full Of Sunshine, I Grant; But Not Like The Mellow Autumn Of Supper.

Soldier Or Sailor, The Fighting Man Is But A Fiend; And The Staff And Body-guard Of The Devil Musters Many A Baton.

The Terrors Of Truth And Dart Of Death To Faith Alike Are Vain.

We May Have Civilized Bodies And Yet Barbarous Souls. We Are Blind To The Real Sights Of This World; Deaf To Its Voice; And Dead To Its Death. And Not Till We Know, That One Grief Outweighs Ten Thousand Joys Will We Become What Christianity Is Striving To Make Us.

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.

All Deep, Earnest Thinking Is But The Intrepid Effort Of The Soul To Keep The Open Independence Of Her Sea, While The Wildest Winds Of Heaven And Earth Conspire To Cast Her On The Treacherous, Slavish Shore.

Where Is There Such An One Who Has Not A Thousand Times Been Struck With A Sort Of Infidel Idea, That Whatever Other Worlds God May Be Lord Of, He Is Not The Lord Of This; For Else This World Would Seem To Give The Lie To Him; So Utterly Repugnant Seem Its Ways To The Instinctively Known Ways Of Heaven.

If You Begin The Day With A Laugh, You May, Nevertheless, End It With A Sob And A Sigh.

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.

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.

Surrounded As We Are By The Wants And Woes Of Our Fellow-men, And Yet Given To Follow Our Own Pleasures, Regardless Of Their Pains, Are We Not Like People Sitting Up With A Corpse, And Making Merry In The House Of The Dead?

Immortality Is But Ubiquity In Time.

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

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

For My Part I Love Sleepy Fellows, And The More Ignorant The Better. Damn Your Wide-awake And Knowing Chaps. As For Sleepiness, Itis One Of The Noblest Qualities Of Humanity. There Is Something Sociable About It, Too. Think Of Those Sensible & Sociable Millions Of Good Fellows All Taking A Good Long Friendly Snooze Together, Under The Sod--no Quarrels, No Imaginary Grievances, No Envies, Heart-burnings, & Thinking How Much Better That Other Chap Is Off--none Of This: But All Equally Free-&-easy, They Sleep Away & Reel Off Their Nine Knots An Hour, In Perfect Amity.

Out Of The Trunk, The Branches Grow; Out Of Them, The Twigs. So, In Productive Subjects, Grow The Chapters.

That Immaculate Manliness We Feel Within Ourselves, So Far Within Us, That It Remains Intact Though All The Outer Character Seem Gone; Bleeds With Keenest Anguish At The Undraped Spectacle Of A Valor-ruined Man.

Ah, Happiness Courts The Light So We Deem The World Is Gay. But Misery Hides Aloof So We Deem That Misery There Is None.

All Wars Are Boyish, And Are Fought By Boys, The Champions And Enthusiasts Of The State: Turbid Ardors And Vain Joys Not Barrenly Abate-- Stimulants To The Power Mature, Preparatives Of Fate.

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.

Boy, Take My Advice, And Never Try To Invent Any Thing But--happiness.

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

Thus It Often Is, That The Constant Friction Of Illiberal Minds Wears Out At Last The Best Resolves Of The More Generous.

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.

Let Us Pray That The Great Historic Tragedy Of Our Time May Not Have Been Enacted Without Instructing Our Whole Beloved Country Through Terror And Pity; And May Fulfillment Verify In The End Those Expectations Which Kindle The Bards Of Progress And Humanity.

Surely A Gentle Sister Is The Second Best Gift To A Man; And It Is First In Point Of Occurrence; For The Wife Comes After.

For As This Appalling Ocean Surrounds The Verdant Land, So In The Soul Of Man There Lies One Insular Tahiti, Full Of Peace And Joy, But Encompassed By All The Horrors Of The Half Known Life.

There Is Nothing So Slipperily Alluring As Sadness; We Become Sad In The First Place By Having Nothing Stirring To Do; We Continue In It, Because We Have Found A Snug Sofa At Last.

There Is A Savor Of Life And Immortality In Substantial Fare. Like Balloons, We Are Nothing Till Filled.

The Western Spirit Is, Or Will Yet Be (for No Other Is, Or Can Be) The True American One.

But The Past Is Passed; Why Moralize Upon It? Forget It. See, Yon Bright Son Has Forgotten It All, And The Blue Sea, And The Blue Sky; These Have Turned Over New Leaves. Because They Have No Memory . . . Because They Are Not Human.

From Without, No Wonderful Effect Is Wrought Within Ourselves, Unless Some Interior, Responding Wonder Meets It. That The Starry Vault Shall Surcharge The Heart With All Rapturous Marvelings, Is Only Because We Ourselves Are Greater Miracles, And Superber Trophies Than All The Stars In Universal Space.

All Wars Are Boyish, And Are Fought By Boys.

A Chaplain Is The Minister Of The Prince Of Peace Serving The Host Of The God Of War--mars. As Such, He Is As Incongruous As A Musket Would Be On The Altar At Christmas. Why, Then, Is He There? Because He Indirectly Subserves The Purpose Attested By The Cannon; Because Too He Lends The Sanction Of The Religion Of The Meek To That Which Practically Is The Abrogation Of Everything But Brute Force.

Nature Has Not Implanted Any Power In Man That Was Not Meant To Be Exercised At Times, Though Too Often Our Powers Have Been Abused. The Privilege, Inborn And Inalienable, That Every Man Has Of Dying Himself, And Inflicting Death Upon Another, Was Not Given To Us Without A Purpose. These Are The Last Resources Of An Insulted And Unendurable Existence.

Many Sensible Things Banished From High Life Find An Asylum Among The Mob.

Of All Nature's Animated Kingdoms, Fish Are The Most Unchristian, Inhospitable, Heartless, And Cold-blooded Of Creatures.

Were This World An Endless Pain, And By Sailing Eastward We Could Forever Reach New Distances, And Discover Sights More Sweet And Strange Than Any Cyclades Or Islands Of King Solomon, Then There Were Promise In The Voyage.

Seat Thyself Sultanically Among The Moons Of Saturn, And Take High Abstracted Man Alone; And He Seems A Wonder, A Grandeur, And A Woe. But From That Same Point, Take Mankind In Mass, And For The Most Part, They Seem A Mob Of Unnecessary Duplicates, Both Contemporary And Hereditary.

Aid My Disillusionment, My Friend!

Disillusionment

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

The Past Is The Textbook Of Tyrants; The Future The Bible Of The Free. Those Who Are Solely Governed By The Past Stand Like Lot's Wife, Crystallized In The Act Of Looking Backward, And Forever Incapable Of Looking Before.

And Tell Him To Paint Me A Sign, With-no Suicides Permitted Here, And No Smloing In The Parlor; Might As Well Kill Both Birds At Once.

God Help Thee, Old Man, Thy Thoughts Have Created A Creature In Thee; And He Whose Intense Thinking Thus Makes Him A Prometheus; A Vulture Feeds Upon That Heart For Ever; That Vulture The Very Creature He Creates.

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

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