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Civilization Has Not Ever Been The Brother Of Equality. Freedom Was Born Among The Wild Eyries In The Mountains; And Barbarous Tribes Have Sheltered Under Her Wings, When The Enlightened People Of The Plain Have Nestled Under Different Pinions.

-Herman Melville

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Civilization Has Not Ever

Herman Melville

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Civilization Has Not Ever Been The Brother Of Equality. Freedom Was Born Among The Wild Eyries In The Mountains; And Barbarous Tribes Have Sheltered Under Her Wings, When The Enlightened People Of The Plain Have Nestled Under Different Pinions.

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You Cannot Hide The Soul.

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

Never Joke At Funerals, Or During Business Transactions.

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.

A Smile Is The Chosen Vehicle Of All Ambiguities.

Roll On, Thou Deep And Dark Blue Ocean, Roll! Ten Thousand Blubber-hunters Sweep Over Thee In Vain.

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

Evil Is The Chronic Malady Of The Universe, And Checked In One Place, Breaks Forth In Another.

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

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

The Result Of Civilization, At The Sandwich Islands And Elsewhere, Is Found Productive To The Civilizers, Destructive To The Civilizees. It Is Said To Be Compensation--a Very Philosophical Word; But It Appears To Be Very Much On The Principle Of The Old Game, "you Lose, I Win": Good Philosophy For The Winner.

And The Visible World Seems Formed In Love, The Invisible Spheres Were Formed In Fright.

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

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

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.

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

...that One Most Perilous And Long Voyage Ended, Only Begins A Second; And A Second Ended, Only Begins A Third, And So On, For Ever And For Aye. Such Is The Endlessness, Yea, The Intolerableness Of All Earthly Effort.

There Is No Life In Thee, Now, Except That Rocking Life Imparted By A Gently Rolling Ship; By Her, Borrowed From The Sea; By The Sea, From The Inscrutable Tides Of God.

Give Not Thyself Up, Then, To Fire, Lest It Invert Thee, Deaden Thee, As For The Time It Did Me. There Is A Wisdom That Is Woe; But There Is A Woe That Is Madness.

When The Passage "all Men Are Born Free And Equal," When That Passage Was Being Written Were Not Some Of The Signers Legalised Owners Of Slaves?

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?

Of The Quaking Recruit, Three Pitched Battles Make A Grim Grenadier; And He Who Shrank From The Muzzle Of A Cannon, Is Now Ready To Yield His Mustache For A Sponge.

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

Ignorance Is The Father Of All Fear.

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.

We Die, Because We Live.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

What Like A Bullet Can Undeceive!

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.

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

That Mortal Man Who Hath More Of Joy Than Sorrow In Him, That Mortal Man Cannot Be True--not True, Or Undeveloped.

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.

Our Souls Belong To Our Bodies, Not Our Bodies To Our Souls.

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.

The Marquesan Girls Dance All Over; Not Only Do Their Feet Dance, But Their Arms, Hands, Fingers, Ay, Their Very Eyes Seem To Dance In Their Heads.

There Are Times When Even The Most Potent Governor Must Wink At Transgression, In Order To Preserve The Laws Inviolate For The Future.

Benevolent Desires, After Passing A Certain Point, Can Not Undertake Their Own Fulfillment Without Incurring The Risk Of Evils Beyond Those Sought To Be Remedied.

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

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.

So, Cutting The Lashing Of The Waterproof Match Keg, After Many Failures Starbuck Contrived To Ignite The Lamp In The Lantern; Then Stretching It On A Waif Pole, Handed It To Queequeg As The Standard-bearer Of This Forlorn Hope. There, Then, He Sat, Holding Up That Imbecile Candle In The Heart Of That Almighty Forlornness. There, Then, He Sat, The Sign And Symbol Of A Man Without Faith, Hopelessly Holding Up Hope In The Midst Of Despair.

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.

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.

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.

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

Those Of Us Who Always Abhorred Slavery As An Atheistical Iniquity, Gladly We Join In The Exulting Chorus Of Humanity Over Its Downfall.

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

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

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

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

Where Does Any Novelist Pick Up Any Character? For The Most Part, In Town, To Be Sure.

At Banquets Surfeit Not, But Fill; Partake, And Retire; And Eat Not Again Till You Crave.

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.

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.

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

In Some Things, We Americans Leave To Other Countries The Carrying Out Of The Principle That Stands At The Head Of Our Declaration Of Independence.

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

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.

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

Niggards Are Oftentimes Neat.

The Easiest Way Of Life Is The Best.

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.

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.

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.

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

Might Have Been

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.

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

It Does Seem To Me, That Herein We See The Rare Virtue Of A Strong Individual Vitality, And The Rare Virtue Of Thick Walls, And The Rare Virtue Of Interior Spaciousness. Oh, Man! Admire And Model Thyself After The Whale! Do Thou, Too, Remain Warm Among Ice. Do Thou, Too, Live In This World Without Being Of It. Be Cool At The Equator; Keep Thy Blood Fluid At The Pole. Like The Great Dome Of St. Peter's, And Like The Great Whale, Retain, O Man! In All Seasons A Temperature Of Thine Own.

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?

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.

Not One Man In Five Cycles, Who Is Wise, Will Expect Appreciative Recognition From His Fellows, Or Any One Of Them.

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?

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

He Seemed To Take To Me Quite As Naturally And Unbiddenly As I To Him; And When Our Smoke Was Over, He Pressed His Forehead Against Mine, Clasped Me Round The Waist, And Said That Henceforth We Were Married.

Much Of A Man's Character Will Be Found Betokened In His Backbone. I Would Rather Feel Your Spine Than Your Skull, Whoever You Are. A Thin Joist Of A Spine Never Yet Upheld A Full And Noble Soul.

Climate Of Egypt In Winter Is The Reign Of Spring Upon Earth, & Summer In The Air, And Tranquility In The Heat.

What Troops Of Generous Boys In Happiness Thus Bred Saturnians Through Life's Tempe Led, Went From The North And Came From The South, With Golden Mottoes In The Mouth, To Lie Down Midway On A Bloody Bed.

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.

The Earliest Instinct Of The Child, And The Ripest Experience Of Age, Unite In Affirming Simplicity To Be The Truest And Profoundest Part For Man. Likewise This Simplicity Is So Universal And All-containing As A Rule For Human Life, That The Subtlest Bad Man, And The Purest Good Man, As Well As The Profoundest Wise Man, Do All Alike Present It On That Side Which They Socially Turn To The Inquisitive And Unscrupulous World.

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.

Genius, All Over The World, Stands Hand In Hand, And One Shock Of Recognition Runs The Whole Circle Round.

Thrusted Light Is Worse Than Presented Pistols.

To Know How To Grow Old Is The Master Work Of Wisdom, And One Of The Most Difficult Chapters In The Great Art Of Living.

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

The Food Of Thy Soul Is Light And Space; Feed It Then On Light And Space. But The Food Of Thy Body Is Champagne And Oysters; Feed It Then On Champagne And Oysters; And So Shall It Merit A Joyful Resurrection, If There Is Any To Be.

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

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.

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.

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.

I Am, As I Am; Whether Hideous, Or Handsome, Depends Upon Who Is Made Judge.

A Good Laugh Is A Mighty Good Thing, And Rather Too Scarce A Good Thing.

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.

Were Not Meant To Be

When We Affect To Condemn Savages, We Should Remember That By Doing So We Asperse Our Own Progenitors; For They Were Savages Also.who Can Swear That Among The Naked British Barbarians Sent To Rome To Be Stared At More Than 1500 Years Ago, The Ancestor Of Bacon Might Not Have Been Found?--why, Among The Very Thugs Of India, Or The Bloody Dyaks Of Borneo, Exists The Germ Of All That Is Intellectually Elevated And Grand. We Are All Of Us--anglo-saxons, Dyaks And Indians--sprung From One Head And Made In One Image.

Better To Sleep With A Sober Cannibal Than A Drunken Christian.

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.

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

Take Almost Any Path You Please, And Ten To One It Carries You Down In A Dale, And Leaves You There By A Pool In The Stream. There Is Magic In It. Let The Most Absent-minded Of Men Be Plunged In His Deepest Reveries--stand That Man On His Legs, Set His Feet A-going, And He Will Infallibly Lead You To Water, If Water There Be In All That Region. Should You Ever Be Athirst In The Great American Desert, Try This Experiment, If Your Caravan Happen To Be Supplied With A Metaphysical Professor. Yes, As Every One Knows, Meditation And Water Are Wedded For Ever.

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

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.

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

Surely No Mere Mortal Who Has At All Gone Down Into Himself Will Ever Pretend That His Slightest Thought Or Act Solely Originates In His Own Defined Identity.

Of All The Preposterous Assumptions Of Humanity Over Humanity, Nothing Exceeds Most Of The Criticisms Made On The Habits Of The Poor By The Well-housed, Well- Warmed, And Well-fed.

In Time Of Peril, Like The Needle To The Loadstone, Obedience, Irrespective Of Rank, Generally Flies To Him Who Is Best Fitted To Command.

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.

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

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

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.

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

Are There No Moravians In The Moon, That Not A Missionary Has Yet Visited This Poor Pagan Planet Of Ours, To Civilise Civilisation And Christianise Christendom?

It Is Better To Fail In Originality Than To Succeed In Imitation.

Twelve O'clock! It Is The Natural Centre, Key-stone, And Very Heart Of The Day. At That Hour, The Sun Has Arrived At The Top Of His Hill; And As He Seems To Hang Poised There A While, Before Coming Down On The Other Side, It Is But Reasonable To Suppose That He Is Then Stopping To Dine; Setting An Eminent Example To All Mankind.

There's Magic In The Water That Draws All Men Away Form The Land, That Leads Them Over Hills, Down Creeks And Streams And Rivers To The Sea.

Though Essaying But A Sportive Sail, I Was Driven From My Course By A Blast Re Sistless; And Ill-provided, Young, And Bowed By The Brunt Of Things Before My Prime, Still Fly Before The Gale. ... If After All These Fearful Fainting Trances, The Verdict Be, The Golden Haven Was Not Gained; Yet In Bold Quest Thereof, Better To Sink In Boundless Deeps Than Float On Vulgar Shoals; And Give Me, Ye Gods, An Utter Wreck, If Wreck I Do.

People Seem To Have A Great Love For Names. For To Know A Great Many Names Seems To Look Like Knowing A Good Many Things.

Until We Understand That Our Grief Outweighs A Thousand Joys, We Will Never Understand What Christianity Is All About.

O Death, The Consecrator! Nothing So Sanctifies A Name As To Be Written--dead. Nothing So Wins A Life From Blame, So Covers It From Wrath And Shame, As Doth The Burial-bed.

Man And Boy, I Have Lived Ever Since I Can Remember.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

In A Multitude Of Acquaintances Is Less Security, Than In One Faithful Friend.

Silence Is The Only Voice Of Our God.

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

Truth Is The Silliest Thing Under The Sun. Try To Get A Living By The Truth And Go To The Soup Societies. Heavens! Let Any Clergyman Try To Preach The Truth From Its Very Stronghold, The Pulpit, And They Would Ride Him Out Of His Church On His Own Pulpit Bannister.

It Is Better To Fail In Originality, Than To Succeed In Imitation. He Who Has Never Failed Somewhere, That Man Can Not Be Great. Failure Is The True Test Of Greatness.

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.

Ah! The Best Righteousness Of Our Man-of-war World Seems But An Unrealized Ideal, After All; And Those Maxims Which, In The Hope Of Bringing About A Millennium, We Busily Teach To The Heathen, We Christians Ourselves Disregard.

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

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

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.

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

The Most Mighty Of Nature's Laws Is This, That Out Of Death She Brings Life.

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

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

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

I Would Prefer Not To.

War Being The Greatest Of Evils, All Its Accessories Necessarily Partake Of The Same Character.

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 Knows Himself, And All That's In Him, Who Knows Adversity.

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.

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.

Truly To Enjoy Bodily Warmth, Some Small Part Of You Must Be Cold, For There Is No Quality In This World That Is Not What It Is Merely By Contrast. Nothing Exists In Itself. If You Flatter Yourself That You Are All Over Comfortable, And Have Been So A Long Time, Then You Cannot Be Said To Be Comfortable Any More.

There Are Hardly Five Critics In America; And Several Of Them Are Asleep.

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.

Whatever My Fate, I'll Go To It Laughing.

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

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.

Start Her, Now; Give 'em The Long And Strong Stroke, Tashtego. Start Her, Tash, My Boy-start Her, All; But Keep Cool, Keep Cool-cucumbers Is The Word-easy, Easy-only Start Her Like Grim Death And Grinning Devils, And Raise The Buried Dead Perpendicular Out Of Their Graves, Boys-that's All. Start Her!

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.

Man, In The Ideal, Is So Noble And So Sparkling, Such A Grand And Glowing Creature, That Over Any Ignominious Blemish In Him All His Fellows Should Run To Throw Their Costliest Robes.

Thinking Is, Or Ought To Be, A Coolness And A Calmness; And Our Poor Hearts Throb, And Our Poor Brains Beat Too Much For That.

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

Truth Is Ever Incoherent, And When The Big Hearts Strike Together, The Concussion Is A Little Stunning.

Truth Is In Things, And Not In Words.

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.

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.

Everyone Knows That In Most People's Estimation, To Do Anything Cooly Is To Do It Genteelly.

Courage Is The Most Common And Vulgar Of The Virtues.

But As In Landlessness Alone Resides The Highest Truth, Shoreless, Indefinite As God - So Better Is It To Perish In That Howling Infinite, Than Be Ingloriously Dashed Upon The Lee, Even If That Were Safety! For Worm-like, Then, Oh! Who Would Craven Crawl To Land!

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

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.

To The Last, I Grapple With Thee; From Hell's Heart, I Stab At Thee; For Hate's Sake, I Spit My Last Breath At Thee.

Youth Is The Time When Hearts Are Large.

The Consciousness Of Being Deemed Dead, Is Next To The Presumable Unpleasantness Of Being So In Reality. One Feels Like His Own Ghost Unlawfully Tenanting A Defunct Carcass.

This Whole Act's Immutably Decreed. 'twas Rehearsed By Thee And Me A Billion Years Before This Ocean Rolled. Fool! I Am The Fates' Lieutenant; I Act Under Orders.

What Is An Atheist, But One Who Does Not, Or Will Not, See In The Universe A Ruling Principle Of Love; And What A Misanthrope, But One Who Does Not, Or Will Not, See In Man A Ruling Principle Of Kindness?

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

Aid My Disillusionment, My Friend!

Disillusionment

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?

Poor Fish Of Rodondo! In Your Victimized Confidence, You Are Of The Number Of Those Who Inconsiderately Trust, While They Do Not Understand, Human Nature.

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.

My Body Is But The Lees Of My Better Being.

Towards Thee I Roll, Thou All-destroying But Unconquering Whale... From Hell's Heart I Stab At Thee.

True Places Are Not Found On Maps.

In Glades They Meet Skull After Skull Where Pine Cones Lay-the Rusted Gun, Green Shoes Full Of Bones, The Mouldering Coat And Cuddled Up Skeleton; And Scores Of Such. Some Start As In Dreams, And Comrades Lost Bemoan; By The Edge Of Those Wilds Stonewall Had Charged- But The Year And The Man Were Gone.

Books, Gentlemen, Are A Species Of Men, And Introduced To Them You Circulate In The "very Best Society" That This World Can Furnish, Without The Intolerable Infliction Of "dressing" To Go Into It. In Your Shabbiest Coat And Cosiest Slippers You May Socially Chat Even With The Fastidious Earl Of Chesterfield, And Lounging Under A Tree Enjoy The Divinest Intimacy With My Late Lord Of Verulam.

All Wars Are Boyish, And Are Fought By Boys.

A Thing May Be Incredible And Still Be True; Sometimes It Is Incredible Because It Is True.

Where Lies The Final Harbor, Whence We Unmoor No More?

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 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.

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

All Of Us Have Monarchs And Sages For Kinsmen; Nay, Angels And Archangels For Cousins; Since In Antediluvian Days, The Sons Of God Did Verily Wed With Our Mothers, The Irresistible Daughters Of Eve. Thus All Generations Are Blended: And Heaven And Earth Of One Kin: The Hierarchies Of Seraphs In The Uttermost Skies; The Thrones And Principalities In The Zodiac; The Shades That Roam Throughout Space; The Nations And Families, Flocks And Folds Of The Earth; One And All, Brothers In Essence-oh, Be We Then Brothers Indeed! All Things Form But One Whole.

A Ship Is A Bit Of Terra Firma Cut Off From The Main; It Is A State In Itself; And The Captain Is Its King.

Our Institutions Have A Potent Digestion, And May In Time Convert And Assimilate To Good All Elements Thrown In, However Originally Alien.

In Childhood, Death Stirred Me Not; In Middle Age, It Pursued Me Like A Prowling Bandit On The Road; Now, Grown An Old Man, It Boldly Leads The Way, And Ushers Me On.

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

Nothing Can Lift The Heart Of Man Like Manhood In A Fellow Man.

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

The Profound Calm Which Only Apparently Precedes And Prophesies Of The Storm, Is Perhaps More Awful Than The Storm Itself; For Indeed, The Calm Is But The Wrapper And Envelop Of The Storm, And Contains It In Itself, As The Seemingly Harmless Rifle Holds The Fatal Powder, And The Ball, And The Explosion.

If Not Against Us, Nature Is Not For Us.

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

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.

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Carl Friedrich Gauss

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