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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.

-Herman Melville

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The Late John Jacob

Herman Melville

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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.

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

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.

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.

Let Us Only Hate Hatred; And Once Give Love A Play, We Will Fall In Love With A Unicorn.

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.

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

The World Is Forever Babbling Of Originality; But There Never Yet Was An Original Man, In The Sense Intended By The World; The First Man Himself--who According To The Rabbins Was Also The First Author--not Being An Original; The Only Original Author Being God.

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

Nature Is Nobody's Ally.

We Die Of Too Much Life.

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

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

In What Rapt Ether Sails The World, Of Which The Weariest Will Never Weary?

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.

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

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

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

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

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

What Is An Atheist, But One Who Does Not, Or Will Not, See In The Universe A Ruling Principle Of Love; And What A Misanthrope, But One Who Does Not, Or Will Not, See In Man A Ruling Principle Of Kindness?

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.

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

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

I Try All Things, I Achieve What I Can.

...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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

One Trembles To Think Of That Mysterious Thing In The Soul, Which Seems To Acknowledge No Human Jurisdiction, But In Spite Of The Individual's Own Innocence Self, Will Still Dream Horrid Dreams, And Mutter Unmentionable Thoughts.

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

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

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.

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

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

The Easiest Way Of Life Is The Best.

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

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.

Beneath Those Stars Is A Universe Of Gliding Monsters.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

We Should, If Possible, Prove A Teacher To Posterity, Instead Of Being The Pupil Of By-gone Generations. More Shall Come After Us Than Have Gone Before; The World Is Not Yet Middle-aged.

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

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.

A Chaplain Is The Minister Of The Prince Of Peace Serving The Host Of The God Of War--mars. As Such, He Is As Incongruous As A Musket Would Be On The Altar At Christmas. Why, Then, Is He There? Because He Indirectly Subserves The Purpose Attested By The Cannon; Because Too He Lends The Sanction Of The Religion Of The Meek To That Which Practically Is The Abrogation Of Everything But Brute Force.

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.

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.

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

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

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

Telling The Truth

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.

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

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.

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

Were This World An Endless Pain, And By Sailing Eastward We Could Forever Reach New Distances, And Discover Sights More Sweet And Strange Than Any Cyclades Or Islands Of King Solomon, Then There Were Promise In The Voyage.

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.

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

In Childhood, Death Stirred Me Not; In Middle Age, It Pursued Me Like A Prowling Bandit On The Road; Now, Grown An Old Man, It Boldly Leads The Way, And Ushers Me On.

He Who Has Never Failed Somewhere, That Man Can Not Be Great. Failure Is The True Test Of Greatness. And If It Be Said, That Continual Success Is A Proof That A Man Wisely Knows His Powers,--it Is Only To Be Added, That, In That Case, He Knows Them To Be Small.

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.

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

Are There No Moravians In The Moon, That Not A Missionary Has Yet Visited This Poor Pagan Planet Of Ours, To Civilise Civilisation And Christianise Christendom?

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

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.

To The Last, I Grapple With Thee; From Hell's Heart, I Stab At Thee; For Hate's Sake, I Spit My Last Breath At Thee.

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

The Sun Hides Not The Ocean, Which Is The Dark Side Of This Earth, And Which Is Two Thirds Of This Earth. So, Therefore, That Mortal Man Who Hath More Of Joy Than Sorrow In Him, That Mortal Man Cannot Be True-- Not True, Or Undeveloped. With Books The Same. The Truest Of All Men Was The Man Of Sorrows, And The Truest Of All Books Is Solomon’s, And Ecclesiastes Is The Fine Hammered Steel Of Woe.

We Are Only What We Are; Not What We Would Be; Nor Every Thing We Hope For. We Are But A Step In A Scale, That Reaches Further Above Us Than Below.

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.

To A Sensitive Being, Pity Is Not Seldom Pain.

Where Lies The Final Harbor, Whence We Unmoor No More? In What Rapt Ether Sails The World, Of Which The Weariest Will Never Weary? Where Is The Foundling’s Father Hidden? 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.

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.

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

The Stillness Of The Calm Is Awful. His Voice Begins To Grow Strange And Portentous. He Feels It In Him Like Something Swallowed Too Big For The Esophagus. It Keeps Up A Sort Of Involuntary Interior Humming In Him, Like A Live Beetle. His Cranium Is A Dome Full Of Reverberations. The Hollows Of His Very Bones Are As Whispering Galleries. He Is Afraid To Speak Loud, Lest He Be Stunned; Like The Man In The Bass Drum.

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

At Last The Anchor Was Up, The Sails Were Set, And Off We Glided. It Was A Sharp, Cold Christmas; And As The Short Northern Day Merged Into Night, We Found Ourselves Almost Broad Upon The Wintry Ocean, Whose Freezing Spray Cased Us In Ice, As In Polished Armor.

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

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!

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.

If You Begin The Day With A Laugh, You May, Nevertheless, End It With A Sob And A Sigh.

They Talk Of The Dignity Of Work. The Dignity Is In Leisure.

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.

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.

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

Honor Lies In The Mane Of A Horse.

Niggards Are Oftentimes Neat.

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

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.

The Past Is Dead, And Has No Resurrection; But The Future Is Endowed With Such A Life, That It Lives To Us Even In Anticipation. The Past Is, In Many Things, The Foe Of Mankind; The Future Is, In All Things, Our Friend. In The Past Is No Hope; The Future Is Both Hope And Fruition. The Past Is The Text-book Of Tyrants; The Future Is The Bible Of The Free. Those Who Are Solely Governed By The Past Stand Like Lot's Wife, Crystallized In The Act Of Looking Backward, And Forever Incapable Of Looking Before.

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

Contempt Is As Frequently Produced At First Sight As Love.

In Some Things, We Americans Leave To Other Countries The Carrying Out Of The Principle That Stands At The Head Of Our Declaration Of Independence.

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

...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.

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

Know, Thou, That The Lines That Live Are Turned Out Of A Furrowed Brow.

If Not Against Us, Nature Is Not For Us.

All Profound Things, And Emotions Of Things Are Preceded And Attended By Silence... Silence Is The General Consecration Of The Universe. Silence Is The Invisible Laying On Of The Divine Pontiff's Hands Upon The World. Silence Is At Once The Most Harmless And The Most Awful Thing In All Nature. It Speaks Of The Reserved Forces Of Fate. Silence Is The Only Voice Of Our God.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

But Oh! Shipmates! On The Starboard Hand Of Every Woe, There Is A Sure Delight; And Higher The Top Of That Delight, Than The Bottom Of The Woe Is Deep.

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.

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

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

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!

To Produce A Mighty Book, You Must Choose A Mighty Theme. No Great And Enduring Volume Can Ever Be Written On The Flea, Though Many There Be That Have Tried It.

Say What Some Poets Will, Nature Is Not So Much Her Own Ever-sweet Interpreter, As The Mere Supplier Of That Cunning Alphabet, Whereby Selecting And Combining As He Pleases, Each Man Reads His Own Peculiar Lesson According To His Own Peculiar Mind And Mood.

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

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.

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 Am Past Scorching; Not Easily Can’st Thou Scorch A Scar.

Truth Is In Things, And Not In Words.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Nothing So Aggravates An Earnest Person As A Passive Resistance.

Passive Resistance

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

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

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

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

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

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.

All Wars Are Boyish, And Are Fought By Boys.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

Let America Add Mexico To Texas, And Pile Cuba Upon Canada; Let The English Overswarm All India, And Hang Out Their Blazing Banner From The Sun; Two Thirds Of This Terraqueous Globe Are The Nantucketer's. For The Sea Is His; He Owns It.

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

There Is Nothing So Slipperily Alluring As Sadness; We Become Sad In The First Place By Having Nothing Stirring To Do; We Continue In It, Because We Have Found A Snug Sofa At Last.

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

Prayer Draws Us Near To Our Own Souls.

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.

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 Whale Ship Was My Yale College And My Harvard.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

An Utterly Fearless Man Is A Far More Dangerous Comrade Than A Coward.

Faith, Like A Jackal, Feeds Among The Tombs, And Even From These Dead Doubts She Gathers Her Most Vital Hope.

Art Is The Objectification Of Feeling.

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

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.

Meditation And Water Are Wedded For Ever.

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

There Is A Touch Of Divinity Even In Brutes, And A Special Halo About A Horse, That Should Forever Exempt Him From Indignities.

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

There Is Sorrow In The World, But Goodness Too; And Goodness That Is Not Greenness, Either, No More Than Sorrow Is.

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

We Die, Because We Live.

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

Might Have Been

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

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.

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.

No Mercy, No Power But Its Own Controls It. Panting And Snorting Like A Mad Battle Steed That Has Lost Its Rider, The Masterless Ocean Overruns The Globe.

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!

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

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

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

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