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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.

-Herman Melville

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Give Not Thyself Up,

Herman Melville

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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.

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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?

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

If A Well-constituted Individual Refrains From Blazoning Aught Amiss Or Calamitous In His Family, A Nation In The Like Circumstance May Without Reproach Be Equally Discreet.

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

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.

Stay True To The Dreams Of Thy Youth.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

Erie, And Ontario, And Huron, And Superior, And Michigan Possess An Ocean-like Expansiveness, With Many Of The Ocean's Noblest Traits... They Are Swept By Borean And Dismasting Blasts As Direful As Any That Lash The Salted Wave; They Know What Shipwrecks Are, For Out Of Sight Of Land, However Inland, They Have Drowned Full Many A Midnight Ship With All Its Shrieking Crew.

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

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.

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

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!

Youth Is The Time When Hearts Are Large.

I Would Prefer Not To.

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?

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.

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

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

True Places Are Not Found On Maps.

He Who Goes Oftenest Round Cape Horn Goes The Most Circumspectly.

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

Better Be Secure Under One King, Than Exposed To Violence From Twenty Millions Of Monarchs, Though Oneself Be One Of Them.

He Piled Upon The Whale's White Hump The Sum Of All The General Rage And Hate Felt By His Whole Race From Adam Down; And Then, As If His Chest Had Been A Mortar, He Burst His Hot Heart's Shell Upon It.

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

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.

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.

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!

Will You, Or Will You Not, Quit Me? I Now Demanded In A Sudden Passion, Advancing Close To Him. "i Would Prefer Not To Quit You", He Replied, Gently Emphasizing The Not.

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.

Let Faith Oust Fact; Let Fancy Oust Memory; I Look Deep Down And Do Believe.

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.

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

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

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!

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 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.

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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.

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.

If I Had Been Downright Honest With Myself, I Would Have Seen Very Plainly In My Heart That I Did But Half Fancy Being Committed This Way To So Long A Voyage, Without Once Laying My Eyes On The Man Who Was To Be The Absolute Dictator Of It, So Soon As The Ship Sailed Out Upon The Open Sea. 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.

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

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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.

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!

This Divineness Had That In It Which, Though Commanding Worship, At The Same Time Enforced A Certain Nameless Terror.

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

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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.

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

Implacable I, The Implacable Sea; Implacable Most When Most I Smile Serene- Pleased, Not Appeased, By Myriad Wrecks In Me.

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I Could...see In Emerson...that Had He Lived In Those Days When The World Was Made, He Might Have Offered Some Valuable Suggestions.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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 Also The Devilish Brilliance And Beauty Of Many Of Its Most Remorseless Tribes, As The Dainty Embellished Shape Of Many Species Of Sharks. Consider, Once More, The Universal Cannibalism Of The Sea; All Whose Creatures Prey Upon Each Other, Carrying On Eternal War Since The World Began.

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

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

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

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.

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.

Nobody Is So Heartily Despised As A Pusillanimous, Lazy, Good-for-nothing, Land-lubber; A Sailor Has No Bowels Of Compassion For Him.

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.

It Is Often To Be Observed, That As In Digging For Precious Metals In The Mines, Much Earthly Rubbish Has First To Be Troublesomely Handled And Thrown Out ; So, In Digging In One S Soul For The Fine Gold Of Genius, Much Dulness And Common-place Is First Brought To Light. Happy Would It Be, If The Man Possessed In Himself Some Receptacle For His Own Rubbish Of This Sort: But He Is Like The Occupant Of A Dwelling, Whose Refuse Cannot Be Clapped Into His Own Cellar, But Must Be Deposited In The Street Before His Own Door, For The Public Functionaries To Take Care Of.

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

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.

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.

Appalling Is The Soul Of A Man! Better Might One Be Pushed Off Into The Material Spaces Beyond The Uttermost Orbit Of Our Sun, Than Once Feel Himself Fairly Afloat In Himself.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

In Metropolitan Cases, The Love Of The Most Single-eyed Lover, Almost Invariably, Is Nothing More Than The Ultimate Settling Of Innumerable Wandering Glances Upon Some One Specific Object.

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

Human Madness Is Oftentimes A Cunning And Most Feline Thing. When You Think It Fled, It May Have But Become Transfigured Into Some Still Subtler Form.

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.

Top-heavy Was The Ship As A Dinnerless Student With All Aristotle In His Head.

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

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.

There Is No Dignity In Wickedness, Whether In Purple Or Rags; And Hell Is A Democracy Of Devils, Where All Are Equals.

Though Amid All The Smoking Horror And Diabolism Of A Sea-fight, Sharks Will Be Seen Longingly Gazing Up To The Ship's Decks, Like Hungry Dogs Round A Table Where Red Meat Is Being Carved, Ready To Bolt Down Every Killed Man That Is Tossed To Them.

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

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 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?

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.

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.

All Things That God Would Have Us Do Are Hard For Us To Do--remember That--and Hence, He Oftener Commands Us Than Endeavours To Persuade.

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.

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.

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

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.

We Americans Are The Peculiar, Chosen People - The Israel Of Our Time; We Bear The Ark Of The Liberties Of The World.

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.

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

Genius Is Full Of Trash.

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.

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

In Our Own Hearts, We Mold The Whole World's Hereafters; And In Our Own Hearts We Fashion Our Own Gods.

A Good Laugh Is A Mighty Good Thing, And Rather Too Scarce A Good Thing; The More's The Pity. So, If Any One Man, In His Own Proper Person, Afford Stuff For A Good Joke To Anybody, Let Him Not Be Backward, But Let Him Cheerfully Allow Himself To Spend And Be Spent In That Way. And The Man That Has Anything Bountifully Laughable About Him, Be Sure There Is More In That Man Than You Perhaps Think For.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

We Die Of Too Much Life.

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.

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

My Means Are Sane, My Motives And My Object Mad.

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.

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

There Is Nothing Namable But That Some Men Will, Or Undertake To, Do It For Pay.

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

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

Ignorance Is The Parent Of Fear.

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

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?

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

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

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

There Are Some Enterprises In Which A Careful Disorderliness Is The True Method.

Queequeg Was A Native Of Kokovoko, An Island Far Away To The West And South. It Is Not Down In Any Map; True Places Never Are.

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

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.

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

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

At My Years, And With My Disposition, Or Rather, Constitution, One Gets To Care Less And Less For Everything Except Downright Goodfeeling. Life Is So Short, And So Ridiculous And Irrational (from A Certain Point Of View) That One Knows Not What To Make Of It, Unless--well, Finish The Sentence For Yourself.

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.

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

Truth Is In Things, And Not In Words.

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

The Sweetest Joys Of Life Grow In The Very Jaws Of Its Perils.

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.

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.

When The Inhabitants Of Some Sequestered Island First Descry The "big Canoe" Of The European Rolling Through The Blue Waters Towards Their Shores, They Rush Down To The Beach In Crowds, And With Open Arms Stand Ready To Embrace The Strangers. Fatal Embrace! They Fold To Their Bosoms The Vipers Whose Sting Is Destined To Poison All Their Joys; And The Instinctive Feeling Of Love Within Their Breasts Is Soon Converted Into The Bitterest Hate.

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.

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

There Is Something In Us, Somehow, That, In The Most Degraded Condition, We Snatch At A Chance To Deceive Ourselves Into A Fanciedsuperiority To Others, Whom We Suppose Lower In The Scale Than Ourselves.

All Truth Is Profound.

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

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

There Was About All The Romans A Heroic Tone Peculiar To Ancient Life. Their Virtues Were Great And Noble, And These Virtues Madethem Great And Noble. They Possessed A Natural Majesty That Was Not Put On And Taken Off At Pleasure, As Was That Of Certain Eastern Monarchs When They Put On Or Took Off Their Garments Of Tyrian Dye. It Is Hoped That This Is Not Wholly Lost From The World, Although The Sense Of Earthly Vanity Inculcated By Christianity May Have Swallowed It Up In Humility.

Prayer Draws Us Near To Our Own Souls.

Beneath Those Stars Is A Universe Of Gliding Monsters.

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

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.

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

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?

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

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.

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.

Of All Human Events, Perhaps, The Publication Of A First Volume Of Verses Is The Most Insignificant; But Though A Matter Of No Moment To The World, It Is Still Of Some Concern To The Author.

You Cannot Hide The Soul.

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

The Fact Is, That Among His Hunters At Least, The Whale Would By All Hands Be Considered A Noble Dish, Were There Not So Much Of Him; But When You Come To Sit Down Before A Meat-pie Nearly One Hundred Feet Long, It Takes Away Your Appetite.

Thou Saw'st The Locked Lovers When Leaping From Their Flaming Ship; Heart To Heart They Sank Beneath The Exulting Wave; True To Each Other, When Heaven Seemed False To Them.

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

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Lakhdar Brahimi

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