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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!

-Herman Melville

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For Small Erections May

Herman Melville

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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!

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Thrusted Light Is Worse Than Presented Pistols.

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

Nothing So Aggravates An Earnest Person As A Passive Resistance.

Passive Resistance

The Eyes Are The Gateway To The Soul.

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

Truth Is In Things, And Not In Words.

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.

No Philosophers So Thoroughly Comprehend Us As Dogs And Horses.

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.

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

Swerve Me? The Path To My Fixed Purpose Is Laid With Iron Rails, Whereon My Soul Is Grooved To Run. Over Unsounded Gorges, Through The Rifled Hearts Of Mountains, Under Torrents' Beds, Unerringly I Rush! Naught's An Obstacle, Naught's An Angle To The Iron Way!

Real Strength Never Impairs Beauty Or Harmony, But It Often Bestows It, And In Everything Imposingly Beautiful, Strength Has Much To Do With The Magic.

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

Nature Is Nobody's Ally.

If Not Against Us, Nature Is Not For Us.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Cannibalism To A Certain Moderate Extent Is Practised Among Several Of The Primitive Tribes In The Pacific, But It Is Upon The Bodies Of Slain Enemies Alone; And Horrible And Fearful As The Custom Is, Immeasurably As It Is To Be Abhorred And Condemned, Still I Assert That Those Who Indulge In It Are In Other Respects Humane And Virtuous.

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.

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

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 Easiest Way Of Life Is The Best.

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?).

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

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

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

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!

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

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

Men There Are, Who Having Quite Done With The World, All Its Merely Worldly Contents Are Become So Far Indifferent, That They Carelittle Of What Mere Worldly Imprudence They May Be Guilty.

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.

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.

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

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?

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

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

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

It Is Not For Man To Follow The Trail Of Truth Too Far, Since By So Doing He Entirely Loses The Directing Compass Of His Mind.

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!

What Plays The Mischief With The Truth Is That Men Will Insist Upon The Universal Application Of A Temporary Feeling Or Opinion.

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.

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

A True Military Officer Is In One Particular Like A True Monk. Not With More Self-abnegation Will The Latter Keep His Vows Of Monastic Obedience Than The Former His Vows Of Allegiance To Martial Duty.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

There's Something Ever Egotistical In Mountain-tops And Towers, And All Other Grand And Lofty Things.

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.

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

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

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 Have The Satisfaction Of Knowing That It Is All Right; That Everybody Else Is One Way Or Other Served In Much The Same Way--either In A Physical Or Metaphysical Point Of View, That Is; And So The Universal Thump Is Passed Round, And All Hands Should Rub Each Other's Shoulder-blades, And Be Content.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Dream Tonight Of Peacock Tails, Diamond Fields And Spouter Whales. Ills Are Many, Blessing Few, But Dreams Tonight Will Shelter You.

I Feel That The Godhead Is Broken Up Like The Bread At The Supper, And That We Are The Pieces. Hence This Infinite Fraternity Of Feeling.

We Are Only What We Are; Not What We Would Be; Nor Every Thing We Hope For. We Are But A Step In A Scale, That Reaches Further Above Us Than Below.

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.

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.

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.

We Cannot Live For Ourselves Alone.

Invisible Threads

Serving The Community

Methinks We Have Hugely Mistaken This Matter Of Life And Death. Methinks That What They Call My Shadow Here On Earth Is My True Substance. Methinks That In Looking At Things Spiritual, We Are Too Much Like Oysters Observing The Sun Through The Water, And Thinking That Thick Water The Thinnest Of Air. Me Thinks My Body Is But The Lees Of My Better Being. In Fact Take My Body Who Will, Take It I Say, It Is Not Me.

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

Silence Is The Only Voice Of Our God.

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

But Oh! Shipmates! On The Starboard Hand Of Every Woe, There Is A Sure Delight; And Higher The Top Of That Delight, Than The Bottom Of The Woe Is Deep.

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

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

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.

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

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

There Is A Woe That Is Wisdom, A Woe That Is Madness.

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.

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.

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 So-called Transcendentalists Are Not The Only People Who Deal In Transcendentals. On The Contrary, We Seem To See That The Utilitarians,--the Every-day World's People Themselves, Far Transcend Those Inferior Transcendentalists By Their Own Incomprehensible Worldly Maxims.

Transcendentalism

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.)

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.

I Never Fancied Broiling Fowls; - Though Once Broiled, Judiciously Buttered, And Judgmatically Salted And Peppered, There Is No One Who Will Speak More Respectfully, Not To Say Reverentially, Of A Broiled Fowl Than I Will.

The Late John Jacob Astor, A Personage Little Given To Poetic Enthusiasm, Had No Hesitation In Pronouncing My First Grand Point To Be Prudence; My Next, Method. I Do Not Speak It In Vanity, But Simply Record The Fact, That I Was Not Unemployed In My Profession By The Late John Jacob Astor; A Name Which, I Admit, I Love To Repeat, For It Hath A Rounded And Orbicular Sound To It, And Rings Like Unto Bullion. I Will Freely Add, That I Was Not Insensible To The Late John Jacob Astor's Good Opinion.

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

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.

I Am Past Scorching; Not Easily Can’st Thou Scorch A Scar.

There Are Certain Queer Times And Occasions In This Strange Mixed Affair We Call Life When A Man Takes His Whole Universe For A Vast Practical Joke.

Beauty Is Like Piety--you Cannot Run And Read It; Tranquility And Constancy, With, Now-a-days, An Easy Chair, Are Needed.

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.

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.

Yet Habit - Strange Thing! What Cannot Habit Accomplish?

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

Prayer Draws Us Near To Our Own Souls.

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

Who In The Rainbow Can Draw The Line Where The Violet Tint Ends And The Orange Tint Begins? Distinctly We See The Difference Of The Colors, But Where Exactly Does The One First Blendingly Enter Into The Other? So With Sanity And Insanity.

Lo! Ye Believers In Gods All Goodness, And In Man All Ill, Lo You! See The Omniscient Gods Oblivious Of Suffering Man; And Man, Though Idiotic, And Knowing Not What He Does, Yet Full Of The Sweet Things Of Love And Gratitude.

Yea, Foolish Mortals, Noah's Flood Is Not Yet Subsided; Two Thirds Of The Fair World It Yet Covers.

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 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!

That Author Who Draws A Character, Even Though To Common View Incongruous In Its Parts, As The Flying-squirrel, And, At Differentperiods, As Much At Variance With Itself As The Caterpillar Is With The Butterfly Into Which It Changes, May Yet, In So Doing, Be Not False But Faithful To Facts.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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?

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

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.

Why Did The Old Persians Hold The Sea Holy? Why Did The Greeks Give It A Separate Deity, And Own Brother Jove? Surely All This Is Not Without Meaning. And Still Deeper The Meaning Of That Story Of Narcissus, Who Because He Could Not Grasp The Tormenting Mild Image He Saw In The Fountain, Plunged Into It And Was Drowned. But That Same Image, We Ourselves See In All Rivers And Oceans. It Is The Image Of The Ungraspable Phantom Of Life; And This Is The Key To It All.

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.

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

The Stillness Of The Calm Is Awful. His Voice Begins To Grow Strange And Portentous. He Feels It In Him Like Something Swallowed Too Big For The Esophagus. It Keeps Up A Sort Of Involuntary Interior Humming In Him, Like A Live Beetle. His Cranium Is A Dome Full Of Reverberations. The Hollows Of His Very Bones Are As Whispering Galleries. He Is Afraid To Speak Loud, Lest He Be Stunned; Like The Man In The Bass Drum.

Traveling Takes The Ink Out Of One's Pen As Well As The Cash Out Of One's Purse.

Be Sure Of This, O Young Ambition, All Mortal Greatness Is But Disease.

See How Elastic Our Prejudices Grow When Once Love Comes To Bend Them.

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

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.

It Is Plain And Demonstrable, That Much Ale Is Not Good For Yankee, And Operates Differently Upon Them From What It Does Upon A Briton; Ale Must Be Drank In A Fog And A Drizzle.

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.

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

It Is The Horrible Texture Of A Fabric That Should Be Woven Of Ships' Cables And Hawsers. A Polar Wind Blows Through It, And Birds Of Prey Hover Over It.

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.

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

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.

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 Poor Man Wants Many Things; The Covetous Man, All.

Courage Is The Most Common And Vulgar Of The Virtues.

Genius Is Full Of Trash.

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

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

The Sea Had Jeeringly Kept His Finite Body Up, But Drowned The Infinite Of His Soul.

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?

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

Might Have Been

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

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.

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

Failure Is The True Test Of Greatness

There Seems No Reason Why Patriotism And Narrowness Should Go Together, Or Why Intellectual Impartiality Should Be Confounded With Political Trimming, Or Why Serviceable Truth Should Keep Cloistered Be A Cause Not Partisan.

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.

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

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.

The Past Is Dead, And Has No Resurrection; But The Future Is Endowed With Such A Life, That It Lives To Us Even In Anticipation. The Past Is, In Many Things, The Foe Of Mankind; The Future Is, In All Things, Our Friend. In The Past Is No Hope; The Future Is Both Hope And Fruition. The Past Is The Text-book Of Tyrants; The Future Is 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.

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.

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

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.

Aid My Disillusionment, My Friend!

Disillusionment

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.

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

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

Failure Is The Test Of Greatness.

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

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

Strange As It May Seem, There Is Nothing In Which A Young And Beautiful Female Appears To More Advantage Than In The Art Of Smoking.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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?

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

To Anybody Who Can Hold The Present At Its Worth Without Being Inappreciative Of The Past, It May Be Forgiven, If To Such An One The Solitary Old Hulk At Portsmouth, Nelson's Victory, Seems To Float There, Not Alone As The Decaying Monument Of A Fame Incorruptible, But Also As A Poetic Approach, Softened By Its Picturesqueness, To The Monitors And Yet Mightier Hulls Of The European Ironclads.

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

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

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

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

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!

We Die Of Too Much Life.

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

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.

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.

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.

An Indiscriminate Distrust Of Human Nature Is The Worst Consequence Of A Miserable Condition, Whether Brought About By Innocence Or Guilt. And Though Want Of Suspicion More Than Want Of Sense, Sometimes Leads A Man Into Harm; Yet Too Much Suspicion Is As Bad As Too Little Sense.

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

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.

None But A Good Man Is Really A Living Man, And The More Good Any Man Does, The More He Really Lives. All The Rest Is Death, Or Belongs To It.

That Nameless And Infinitely Delicate Aroma Of Inexpressible Tenderness And Attentiveness Which, In Every Refined And Honorable Attachment, Is Contemporary With The Courtship, And Precedes The Final Banns And The Rite; But Which, Like The Bouquet Of The Costliest German Wines, Too Often Evaporates Upon Pouring Love Out To Drink, In The Disenchanting Glasses Of The Matrimonial Days And Nights.

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.

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.

All The World Over, The Picturesque Yields To The Pocketesque.

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

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.

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.

You Know Nothing Till You Know All; Which Is The Reason We Never Know Any Thing.

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.

Only The Man Who Says No Is Free

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.

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