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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.

-Herman Melville

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In Glades They Meet

Herman Melville

...

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.

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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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

How Feeble Is All Language To Describe The Horrors We Inflict Upon These Wretches, Whom We Mason Up In The Cells Of Our Prisons, And Condemn To Perpetual Solitude In The Very Heart Of Our Population.

Honor Lies In The Mane Of A Horse.

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.

My Body Is But The Lees Of My Better Being.

You Cannot Hide The Soul.

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

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.

The Western Spirit Is, Or Will Yet Be (for No Other Is, Or Can Be) The True American One.

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

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.

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

Beware The People Weeping When They Bare The Iron Hand.

To Be Called One Thing, Is Oftentimes To Be Another.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

All Experience Teaches That, Whenever There Is A Great National Establishment, Employing Large Numbers Of Officials, The Public Must Be Reconciled To Support Many Incompetent Men; For Such Is The Favoritism And Nepotism Always Prevailing In The Purlieus Of These Establishments, That Some Incompetent Persons Are Always Admitted, To The Exclusion Of Many Of The Worthy.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

If Shakespeare Has Not Been Equalled, He Is Sure To Be Surpassed, And Surpassed By An American Born Now Or Yet To Be Born.

Book! You Lie There; The Fact Is, You Books Must Know Your Places. You'll Do To Give Us The Bare Words And Facts, But We Come In To Supply The Thoughts.

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

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?

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.

Great Towers Take Time To Construct.

Fame Is An Accident; Merit A Thing Absolute.

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

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.

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.

Old Age Is Always Wakeful; As If, The Longer Linked With Life, The Less Man Has To Do With Aught That Looks Like Death.

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

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

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.

Art Is The Objectification Of Feeling.

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

Nothing So Aggravates An Earnest Person As A Passive Resistance.

Passive Resistance

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.

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.

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.

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

Ah, Happiness Courts The Light So We Deem The World Is Gay. But Misery Hides Aloof So We Deem That Misery There Is None.

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.

Yet Habit - Strange Thing! What Cannot Habit Accomplish?

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

Friendship At First Sight, Like Love At First Sight, Is Said To Be The Only Truth.

The Sailor Is Frankness, The Landsman Is Finesse. Life Is Not A Game With The Sailor, Demanding The Long Head

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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?

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.

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.

A Smile Is The Chosen Vehicle Of All Ambiguities.

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

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.

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

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

Familiarity With Danger Makes A Brave Man Braver, But Less Daring. Thus With Seamen: He Who Goes The Oftenest Round Cape Horn Goes The Most Circumspectly.

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.

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.

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

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

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

What Like A Bullet Can Undeceive!

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

Human Madness Is Oftentimes A Cunning And Most Feline Thing

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

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.

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.

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.

In One Word, Queequeg, Said I, Rather Digressively; Hell Is An Idea First Born On An Undigested Apple-dumpling; And Since Then Perpetuated Through The Hereditary Dyspepsias Nurtured By Ramadans.

A Whale Ship Was My Yale College And My Harvard.

There Is No Champollion To Decipher The Egypt Of Every Man's And Every Being's Face. Physiognomy, Like Every Other Human Science,is But A Passing Fable.

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

The Sailor Is Frankness, The Landsman Is Finesse. Life Is Not A Game With The Sailor, Demanding The Long Head--no Intricate Game Of Chess Where Few Moves Are Made In Straight-forwardness And Ends Are Attained By Indirection, An Oblique, Tedious, Barren Game Hardly Worth That Poor Candle Burnt Out In Playing It.

Niggards Are Oftentimes Neat.

We May Have Civilized Bodies And Yet Barbarous Souls.

Truth Uncompromisingly Told Will Always Have Its Ragged Edges.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

Thus It Often Is, That The Constant Friction Of Illiberal Minds Wears Out At Last The Best Resolves Of The More Generous.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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?

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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?

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!

Failure Is The Test Of Greatness.

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

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.

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

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

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

See With What Entire Freedom The Whaleman Takes His Handful Of Lamps-often But Old Bottles And Vials, Though. ... He Burns, Too, The Purest Of Oil. ... It Is Sweet As Early Grass Butter In April. He Goes And Hunts For His Oil, So As To Be Sure Of Its Freshness And Genuineness, Even As The Traveler On The Prairie Hunts Up His Own Supper Of Game.

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

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?

Better Be An Old Maid, A Woman With Herself As A Husband, Than The Wife Of A Fool; And Solomon More Than Hints That All Men Are Fools; And Every Wise Man Knows Himself To Be One.

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.

Ignorance Is The Parent Of Fear.

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

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.

...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.

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

When Among Wild Beasts, If They Menace You, Be A Wild Beast.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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!

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

Stay True To The Dreams Of Thy Youth.

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.

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.

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

Truth Is In Things, And Not In Words.

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

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

Thrusted Light Is Worse Than Presented Pistols.

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

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.

It Is A Thing Which Every Sensible American Should Learn From Every Sensible Englishman, That Glare And Glitter, Gimcracks And Gewgaws, Are Not Indispensable To Domestic Solacement.

We Cannot Live For Ourselves Alone.

Invisible Threads

Serving The Community

If There Be Any Thing A Man Might Well Pray Against, That Thing Is The Responsive Gratification Of Some Of The Devoutest Prayers Of His Youth.

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

Only The Man Who Says No Is Free

I Have No Objection To Any Person's Religion, Be It What It May, So Long As That Person Does Not Kill Or Insult Any Other Person, Because That Other Person Don't Believe It Also. But When A Man's Religion Becomes Really Frantic; When It Is A Positive Torment To Him; And, In Fine, Makes This Earth Of Ours An Uncomfortable Inn To Lodge In; Then I Think It High Time To Take That Individual Aside And Argue The Point With Him.

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.

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.

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

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

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

Failure Is The True Test Of Greatness

Life’s A Voyage That’s Homeward Bound.

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 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.

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.

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

I Have Written A Wicked Book, And Feel Spotless As The Lamb.

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

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 This World, Shipmates, Sin That Pays Its Way Can Travel Freely, And Without Passport; Whereas Virtue, If A Pauper, Is Stopped At All Frontiers.

Courage Is The Most Common And Vulgar Of The Virtues.

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

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.

Thou Wine Art The Friend Of The Friendless, Though A Foe To All.

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

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.

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.

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.

In This World Of Lies, Truth Is Forced To Fly Like A Scared White Doe In The Woodlands; And Only By Cunning Glimpses Will She Reveal Herself, As In Shakespeare And Other Masters Of The Great Art Of Telling The Truth, Even Though It Be Covertly, And By Snatches.

Thou Hast Evoked In Me Profounder Spells Than The Evoking One, Thou Face! For Me, Thou Hast Uncovered One Infinite, Dumb, Beseeching Countenance Of Mystery, Underlying All The Surfaces Of Visible Time And Space.

We Die Of Too Much Life.

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

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Randall Jarrell

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