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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.

-Herman Melville

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Love's Secrets, Being Mysteries,

Herman Melville

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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.

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

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.

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

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!

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

Though Essaying But A Sportive Sail, I Was Driven From My Course By A Blast Re Sistless; And Ill-provided, Young, And Bowed By The Brunt Of Things Before My Prime, Still Fly Before The Gale. ... If After All These Fearful Fainting Trances, The Verdict Be, The Golden Haven Was Not Gained; Yet In Bold Quest Thereof, Better To Sink In Boundless Deeps Than Float On Vulgar Shoals; And Give Me, Ye Gods, An Utter Wreck, If Wreck I Do.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

A Gentleman Of Typee Can Bring Up A Numerous Family Of Children And Give Them All A Highly Respectable Cannibal Education, With Infinitely Less Toil And Anxiety Than He Expends In The Simple Process Of Striking A Light; Whilst A Poor European Artisan, Who Through The Instrumentality Of A Lucifer Performs The Same Operation In One Second, Is Put To His Wits' End To Provide For His Starving Offspring That Food Which The Children Of A Polynesian Father, Without Troubling Their Parent, Pluck From The Branches Of Every Tree Around Them.

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.

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

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

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.

What We Take To Be Our Strongest Tower Of Delight, Only Stands At The Caprice Of The Minutest Event The Falling Of A Leaf, The Hearing Of A Voice, Or The Receipt Of One Little Bit Of Paper Scratched Over With A Few Small Characters By A Sharpened Feather.

Nature Is Nobody's Ally.

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.

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

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.

Only The Man Who Says No Is Free

Surely No Mere Mortal Who Has At All Gone Down Into Himself Will Ever Pretend That His Slightest Thought Or Act Solely Originates In His Own Defined Identity.

The 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.

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.

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.

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

The Result Of Civilization, At The Sandwich Islands And Elsewhere, Is Found Productive To The Civilizers, Destructive To The Civilizees. It Is Said To Be Compensation--a Very Philosophical Word; But It Appears To Be Very Much On The Principle Of The Old Game, "you Lose, I Win": Good Philosophy For The Winner.

...the Silent Reminiscence Of Hardships Departed, Is Sweeter Than The Presence Of Delight.

Is He Mad? Anyway There's Something On His Mind, As Sure As There Must Be Something On A Deck When It Cracks.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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?

The Eyes Are The Gateway To The Soul.

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?

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.

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

Those Of Us Who Always Abhorred Slavery As An Atheistical Iniquity, Gladly We Join In The Exulting Chorus Of Humanity Over Its Downfall.

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

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.

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

Thrusted Light Is Worse Than Presented Pistols.

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.

Honor Lies In The Mane Of A Horse.

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

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.

True Places Are Not Found On Maps.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

Ah, Bartleby! Ah, Humanity!

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

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.

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

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

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

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

A Whale Ship Was My Yale College And My Harvard.

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.

The Grand Points In Human Nature Are The Same To-day They Were A Thousand Years Ago. The Only Variability In Them Is In Expression, Not In Feature.

That Immaculate Manliness We Feel Within Ourselves, So Far Within Us, That It Remains Intact Though All The Outer Character Seem Gone; Bleeds With Keenest Anguish At The Undraped Spectacle Of A Valor-ruined Man.

Contempt Is As Frequently Produced At First Sight As Love.

That Hour In The Life Of A Man When First The Help Of Humanity Fails Him, And He Learns That In His Obscurity And Indigence Humanity Holds Him A Dog And No Man: That Hour Is A Hard One, But Not The Hardest. There Is Still Another Hour Which Follows, When He Learns That In His Infinite Comparative Minuteness And Abjectness, The Gods Do Likewise Despise Him, And Own Him Not Of Their Clan.

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.

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

There Is No Life In Thee, Now, Except That Rocking Life Imparted By A Gently Rolling Ship; By Her, Borrowed From The Sea; By The Sea, From The Inscrutable Tides Of God.

Ah! The Best Righteousness Of Our Man-of-war World Seems But An Unrealized Ideal, After All; And Those Maxims Which, In The Hope Of Bringing About A Millennium, We Busily Teach To The Heathen, We Christians Ourselves Disregard.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

What Like A Bullet Can Undeceive!

...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.

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.

The Pulpit Is Ever This Earth's Foremost Part; All The Rest Comes In Its Rear; The Pulpit Leads The World. From Thence It Is The Storm Of God's Quick Wrath Is First Descried, And The Bow Must Bearthe Earliest Brunt. From Thence It Is The God Of Breezes Fair Or Foul Is First Invokedfor Favorable Winds. Yes, The World's A Ship On Its Passage Out, And Not A Voyage Complete; And The Pulpit Is Its Prow.

Genius Is Full Of Trash.

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.

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.

We Cannot Live For Ourselves Alone.

Invisible Threads

Serving The Community

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.

Aye, Aye! And I'll Chase Him Round Good Hope, And Round The Horn, And Round The Norway Maelstrom, And Round Perdition's Flames Before I Give Him Up.

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

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

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.

You Cannot Hide The Soul.

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

Ignorance Is The Father Of All Fear.

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

If Some Books Are Deemed Most Baneful And Their Sale Forbid, How Then With Deadlier Facts, Not Dreams Of Doting Men? Those Whom Books Will Hurt Will Not Be Proof Against Events. Events, Not Books Should Be Forbid.

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

I Try All Things, I Achieve What I Can.

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

The Reason The Mass Of Men Fear God, And At Bottom Dislike Him, Is Because They Rather Distrust His Heart, And Fancy Him All Brain Like A Watch. (you Perceive I Employ A Capital Initial In The Pronoun Referring To The Deity; Don't You Think There Is A Slight Dash Of Flunkeyism In That Usage?).

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

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

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.

Were Not Meant To Be

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.

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.

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!

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

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.

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

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.

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 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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

Whatever My Fate, 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.

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

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.

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

Might Have Been

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.

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

Telling The Truth

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

When My Eye Rested On An Arid Height, Spirit Partook Of The Barrenness. - Heartily Wish Niebuhr & Strauss To The Dogs. The Deuce Take Their Penetration & Acumen. They Have Robbed Us Of The Bloom.

Meditation And Water Are Wedded For Ever.

Why Is Almost Every Robust Healthy Boy With A Robust Healthy Soul In Him, At Some Time Or Other Crazy To Go To Sea? Why Upon Your First Voyage As A Passenger, Did You Yourself Feel Such A Mystical Vibration, When First Told That You And Your Ship Were Now Out Of Sight Of Land? Why Did The Old Persians Hold The Sea Holy? Why Did The Greeks Give It A Separate Deity, And Own Brother Of Jove? Surely All This Is Not Without Meaning.

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

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

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.

Courage Is The Most Common And Vulgar Of The Virtues.

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

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!

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.

Fame Is An Accident; Merit A Thing Absolute.

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.

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.

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?

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

Give Not Thyself Up, Then, To Fire, Lest It Invert Thee, Deaden Thee, As For The Time It Did Me. There Is A Wisdom That Is Woe; But There Is A Woe That Is Madness.

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

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.

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

We Die, Because We Live.

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

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.

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

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

Ignorance Is The Parent Of Fear.

A Smile Is The Chosen Vehicle Of All Ambiguities.

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

It Is Against The Will Of God That The East Should Be Christianized.

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

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.

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

Nearly All Literature, In One Sense, Is Made Up Of Guide-books. Old Ones Tell Us The Ways Our Fathers Went, Through The Thoroughfares And Courts Of Old; But How Few Of Those Former Places Can Their Posterity Trace, Amid Avenues Of Modern Erections; To How Few Is The Old Guide-book Now A Clew! Every Age Makes Its Own Guide-books, And The Old Ones Are Used For Waste Paper.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

Yet Habit - Strange Thing! What Cannot Habit Accomplish?

Immortality Is But Ubiquity In Time.

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

Of All Insults, The Temporary Condescension Of A Master To A Slave Is The Most Outrageous And Galling. That Potentate Who Most Condescends, Mark Him Well; For That Potentate, If Occasion Come, Will Prove Your Uttermost Tyrant.

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

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?

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Mstislav Rostropovich

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