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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.

-Herman Melville

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I Will Frankly Confess

Herman Melville

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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.

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It May Seem Strange That Of All Men Sailors Should Be Tinkering At Their Last Wills And Testaments, But There Are No People In The World More Fond Of That Diversion.

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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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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.

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

Truth Is In Things, And Not In Words.

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

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

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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.

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.

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

Art Is The Objectification Of Feeling.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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?

Honor Lies In The Mane Of A Horse.

We Die Of Too Much Life.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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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.

Silence Is The Only Voice Of Our God.

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

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

Cannibals? Who Is Not A Cannibal? I Tell You It Will Be More Tolerable For The Fejee That Salted Down A Lean Missionary In His Cellar Against A Coming Famine; It Will Be More Tolerable For That Provident Fejee, I Say, In The Day Of Judgement, Than For Thee, Civilized And Enlightened Gourmand, Who Nailest Geese To The Ground And Feastest On Their Bloated Livers In Thy Pate De Fois Gras.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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?

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

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

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

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.

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

Wag The World How It Will, Leaves Must Be Green In Spring.

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

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

Let Us Speak, Though We Show All Our Faults And Weaknesses, - For It Is A Sign Of Strength To Be Weak, To Know It, And Out With It - Not In A Set Way And Ostentatiously, Though, But Incidentally And Without Premeditation.

Failure Is The Test Of Greatness.

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

We Die, Because We Live.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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-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.

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

A Smile Is The Chosen Vehicle Of All Ambiguities.

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.

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

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

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

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.

Beware The People Weeping When They Bare The Iron Hand.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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!

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.

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.

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

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

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

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!

Youth Is The Time When Hearts Are Large.

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.

A Beautiful Woman Is Born Queen Of Men And Women Both, As Mary Stuart Was Born Queen Of Scots, Whether Men Or Women.

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

At Length I Fell Asleep, With The Volume In My Hand; And Never Slept So Sound Before

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.

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

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.

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

To A Sensitive Being, Pity Is Not Seldom Pain.

Courage Is The Most Common And Vulgar Of The Virtues.

The Eyes Are The Gateway To The Soul.

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

The Easiest Way Of Life Is The Best.

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

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

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

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!

As For Me, I Am Tormented With An Everlasting Itch For Things Remote. I Love To Sail Forbidden Seas, And Land On Barbarous Coasts.

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

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

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

The Only Ugliness Is That Of The Heart, Seen Through The Face. And Though Beauty Be Obvious, The Only Loveliness Is Invisible.

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.

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

The Ancients Of The Ideal Description, Instead Of Trying To Turn Their Impracticable Chimeras, As Does The Modern Dreamer, Into Social And Political Prodigies, Deposited Them In Great Works Of Art, Which Still Live While States And Constitutions Have Perished, Bequeathing To Posterity Not Shameful Defects But Triumphant Successes.

I Rejoice In My Spine, As In The Firm Audacious Staff Of That Flag Which I Fling Half Out To The World.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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?

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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?

No Philosophers So Thoroughly Comprehend Us As Dogs And Horses.

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.

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.

Ignorance Is The Parent Of Fear.

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.

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.

As In Digging For Precious Metals In The Mines, Much Earthy Rubbish Has First To Be Troublesomely Handled And Thrown Out; So, In Digging In One's Soul For The Fine Gold Of Genius, Much Dullness And Common-place Is First Brought To Light.

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.

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

Thrusted Light Is Worse Than Presented Pistols.

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

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.

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

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.

You Must Have Plenty Of Sea-room To Tell The Truth In.

Telling The Truth

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

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.

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

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

Ah, Bartleby! Ah, Humanity!

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

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

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.

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.

There Is The Grand Truth About Nathaniel Hawthorne. He Says No! In Thunder; But The Devil Himself Cannot Make Him Say Yes. For All Men Who Say Yes, Lie; And All Men Who Say No,why, They Are In The Happy Condition Of Judicious, Unincumbered Travellers In Europe; They Cross The Frontiers Into Eternity With Nothing But A Carpet-bag,that Is To Say, The Ego. Whereas Those Yes-gentry, They Travel With Heaps Of Baggage, And, Damn Them! They Will Never Get Through The Custom House.

Aid My Disillusionment, My Friend!

Disillusionment

Life’s A Voyage That’s Homeward Bound.

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.

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

Truth Uncompromisingly Told Will Always Have Its Ragged Edges.

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.

Hope Is The Struggle Of The Soul, Breaking Loose From What Is Perishable, And Attesting Her Eternity.

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