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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.

-Herman Melville

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If I Had Been

Herman Melville

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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.

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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.

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.

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

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

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

Ah, Bartleby! Ah, Humanity!

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.

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

Prayer Draws Us Near To Our Own Souls.

Beneath Those Stars Is A Universe Of Gliding Monsters.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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!

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.

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

Failure Is The Test Of Greatness.

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?

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.

The Drama's Done. Why Then Here Does Any One Step Forth? — Because One Did Survive The Wreck.

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

For, As When The Red-cheeked, Dancing Girls, April And May, Trip Home To The Wintry, Misanthropic Woods; Even The Barest, Ruggedest, Most Thunder-cloven Old Oak Will At Least Send Forth Some Few Green Sprouts, To Welcome Such Glad-hearted Visitants . . .

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.

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.

Genius Is Full Of Trash.

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.

Only The Man Who Says No Is Free

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

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

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.

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.

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

Toil Is Man's Allotment; Toil Of Brain, Or Toil Of Hands, Or A Grief That's More Than Either, The Grief And Sin Of Idleness.

Beware The People Weeping When They Bare The Iron Hand.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

You Cannot Spill A Drop Of American Blood Without Spilling The Blood Of The Whole World.... We Are Not A Nation, So Much As A World.

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

Aside From Higher Considerations, Charity Often Operates As A Vastly Wise And Prudent Principle-a Great Safeguard To Its Possessor. Men Have Committed Murder For Jealousy's Sake, And Anger's Sake, And Hatred's Sake, And Selfishness' Sake, And Spiritual Pride's Sake; But No Man That Ever I Heard Of, Ever Committed A Diabolical Murder For Sweet Charity's Sake. Mere Self-interest, Then, If No Better Motive Can Be Enlisted, Should, Especially With High-tempered Men, Prompt All Beings To Charity And Philanthropy.

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.

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

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

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

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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.

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

Nothing So Aggravates An Earnest Person As A Passive Resistance.

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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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

People Think That If A Man Has Undergone Any Hardship, He Should Have A Reward; But For My Part, If I Have Done The Hardest Possible Day's Work, And Then Come To Sit Down In A Corner And Eat My Supper Comfortably -why, Then I Don't Think I Deserve Any Reward For My Hard Day's Work -for Am I Not Now At Peace? Is Not My Supper Good?

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.

Nature Is Nobody's Ally.

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

Telling The Truth

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.

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

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.

How It Is I Know Not; But There Is No Place Like A Bed For Confidential Disclosures Between Friends. Man And Wife, They Say, There Open The Very Bottom Of Their Souls To Each Other; And Some Old Couples Often Lie And Chat Over Old Times Till Nearly Morning. Thus, Then, In Our Hearts' Honeymoon, Lay I And Queequeg - A Cosy, Loving Pair.

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

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

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.

It Is Impossible To Talk Or To Write Without Apparently Throwing Oneself Helplessly Open.

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.

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

I Do Not Think I Have Any Uncharitable Prejudice Against The Rattlesnake, Still, I Should Not Like To Be One.

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.

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

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

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

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.

Honor Lies In The Mane Of A Horse.

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

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.

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.

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!

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

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.

Is Ahab, Ahab? Is It I, God, Or Who, That Lifts This Arm? But If The Great Sun Move Not Of Himself; But Is An Errand-boy In Heaven; Nor One Single Star Can Revolve, But By Some Invisible Power; How Then Can This One Small Heart Beat; This One Small Brain Think Thoughts; Unless God Does That Beating, Does That Thinking, Does That Living, And Not I.

One Would Like To Know, What Were Foes Made For Except To Be Used?

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.

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

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.

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

I Have Written A Wicked Book, And Feel Spotless As The Lamb. Ineffable Socialities Are In Me. I Would Sit Down And Dine With You And All The Gods In Old Rome's Pantheon. It Is A Strange Feeling--no Hopefulness Is In It, No Despair. Content--that Is It; And Irresponsibility; But Without Licentious Inclination.

There Is A Wisdom That Is Woe; But There Is A Woe That Is Madness. And There Is A Catskill Eagle In Some Souls That Can Alike Dive Down Into The Blackest Gorges, And Soar Out Of Them Again And Become Invisible In The Sunny Spaces. And Even If He For Ever Flies Within The Gorge, That Gorge Is In The Mountains; So That Even In His Lowest Swoop The Mountain Eagle Is Still Higher Than Other Birds Upon The Plain, Even Though They Soar.

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.

Why, Ever Since Adam, Who Has Got To The Meaning Of This Great Allegory - The World? Then We Pygmies Must Be Content To Have Out Paper Allegories But Ill Comprehended.

The Grand Principles Of Virtue And Honor, However They May Be Distorted By Arbitrary Codes, Are The Same The World Over: And Wherethese Principles Are Concerned, The Right Or Wrong Of Any Action Appears The Same To The Uncultivated As To The Enlightened Mind.

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

A Smile Is The Chosen Vehicle Of All Ambiguities.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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!

That Great America On The Other Side Of The Sphere, Australia.

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.

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

Might Have Been

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

Stay True To The Dreams Of Thy Youth.

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

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.

We Cannot Live For Ourselves Alone.

Invisible Threads

Serving The Community

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

Fame Is An Accident; Merit A Thing Absolute.

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.

Meditation And Water Are Wedded For Ever.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

Woe To Him Who Seeks To Please Rather Than Appall.

Never Joke At Funerals, Or During Business Transactions.

The Eyes Are The Gateway To The Soul.

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.

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.

All Men Live Enveloped In Whale-lines. All Are Born With Halters Round Their Necks; But It Is Only When Caught In The Swift, Sudden Turn Of Death, That Mortals Realize The Silent, Subtle, Ever-present Perils Of Life. And If You Be A Philosopher, Though Seated In The Whale-boat, You Would Not At Heart Feel One Whit More Of Terror, Than Though Seated Before Your Evening Fire With A Poker, And Not A Harpoon, By Your Side.

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

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

Aid My Disillusionment, My Friend!

Disillusionment

But When That Smoking Chowder Came In, The Mystery Was Delightfully Explained. Oh! Sweet Friends, Hearken To Me. It Was Made Of Small Juicy Clams, Scarcely Bigger Than Hazel Nuts, Mixed With Pounded Ship Biscuits And Salted Pork Cut Up Into Little Flakes! The Whole Enriched With Butter, And Plentifully Seasoned With Pepper And Salt... We Dispatched It With Great Expedition.

If Not Against Us, Nature Is Not For Us.

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.

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.

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

Youth Is The Time When Hearts Are Large.

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

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

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!

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

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

And, As For Me, If, By Any Possibility, There Be Any As Yet Undiscovered Prime Thing In Me; If I Shall Ever Deserve Any Real Repute In That Small But High Hushed World Which I Might Not Be Unreasonably Ambitious Of ; If Hereafter I Shall Do Anything That, Upon The Whole, A Man Might Rather Have Done Than To Have Left Undone ; If, At My Death, My Executors, Or More Properly My Creditors, Find Any Precious Mss. In My Desk, Then Here I Prospectively Ascribe All The Honour And The Glory To Whaling; For A Whale-ship Was My Yale College And My Harvard.

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.

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

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

Great Towers Take Time To Construct.

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

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

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.

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.

The Path To My Fixed Purpose Is Laid With Iron Rails Whereon My Soul Is Grooved To Run

But I Shall Follow The Endless, Winding Way, — The Flowing River In The Cave Of Man; Careless Whither I Be Led, Reckless Where I Land.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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 World's A Ship On Its Voyage Out, And Not A Voyage Complete; And The Pulpit Is Its Prow.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

We Incline To Think That God Cannot Explain His Own Secrets And That He Would Like A Little Information Upon Certain Points Himself. We Mortals Astonish Him As Much As He Us. But It Is This Being Of The Matter; There Lies The Knot With Which We Choke Ourselves. As Soon As You Say Me, A God, A Nature, So Soon You Jump Off From Your Stool And Hang From The Beam. Yes, That Word Is The Hangman. Take God Out Of The Dictionary, And You Would Have Him In The Street.

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.

To Produce A Mighty Book, You Must Choose A Mighty Theme.

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