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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.

-Herman Melville

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There Is Something In

Herman Melville

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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.

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I Baptize You Not In The Name Of The Father, But In The Name Of The Devil. (ego Baptizo Te In Nomine Patris, Sed In Nomine Diaboli.)

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

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.

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

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

Ladies Are Like Creeds; If You Cannot Speak Well Of Them, Say Nothing.

Only The Man Who Says No Is Free

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

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

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

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.

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.

Man Is A Money-making Animal, Which Propensity Too Often Interferes With His Benevolence.

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

Beware The People Weeping When They Bare The Iron Hand.

There Was About All The Romans A Heroic Tone Peculiar To Ancient Life. Their Virtues Were Great And Noble, And These Virtues Madethem Great And Noble. They Possessed A Natural Majesty That Was Not Put On And Taken Off At Pleasure, As Was That Of Certain Eastern Monarchs When They Put On Or Took Off Their Garments Of Tyrian Dye. It Is Hoped That This Is Not Wholly Lost From The World, Although The Sense Of Earthly Vanity Inculcated By Christianity May Have Swallowed It Up In Humility.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Nature Has Not Implanted Any Power In Man That Was Not Meant To Be Exercised At Times, Though Too Often Our Powers Have Been Abused. The Privilege, Inborn And Inalienable, That Every Man Has Of Dying Himself, And Inflicting Death Upon Another, Was Not Given To Us Without A Purpose. These Are The Last Resources Of An Insulted And Unendurable Existence.

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

Telling The Truth

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

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.

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?

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

Who In The Rainbow Can Draw The Line Where The Violet Tint Ends And The Orange Tint Begins?

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

Poor People Make A Very Poor Business Of It When They Try To Seem Rich.

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

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

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.

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

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.

I Will Frankly Confess That After Passing A Few Weeks In The Valley Of The Marquesas, I Formed A Higher Estimate Of Human Nature Than I Had Ever Before Entertained. But, Alas, Since Then I Have Been One Of The Crew Of A Man-of- War, And The Pent-up Wickedness Of Five Hundred Men Has Nearly Overturned All My Previous Theories.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

If Not Against Us, Nature Is Not For Us.

When Beholding The Tranquil Beauty And Brilliancy Of The Ocean’s Skin, One Forgets The Tiger Heart That Pants Beneath It; And Would Not Willingly Remember That This Velvet Paw But Conceals A Remorseless Fang.

Contempt Is As Frequently Produced At First Sight As Love.

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

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

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.

Immortality Is But Ubiquity In Time.

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.

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.

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

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

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 Am Sorry To Say We Whites Have A Sad Reputation Among Many Of The Polynesians. The Natives Of These Islands Are Naturally Of A Kindly And Hospitable Temper, But There Has Been Implanted Among Them An Almost Instinctive Hate Of The White Man. They Esteem Us, With Rare Exceptions, Such As Some Of The Missionaries, The Most Barbarous, Treacherous, Irreligious, And Devilish Creatures On The Earth.

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.

Nothing So Aggravates An Earnest Person As A Passive Resistance.

Passive Resistance

Amity Itself Can Only Be Maintained By Reciprocal Respect, And True Friends Are Punctilious Equals.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

I Try All Things, I Achieve What I Can.

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

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

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.

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

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

Might Have Been

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

The Eyes Are The Gateway To The Soul.

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

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

Soldier Or Sailor, The Fighting Man Is But A Fiend; And The Staff And Body-guard Of The Devil Musters Many A Baton.

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

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

Niggards Are Oftentimes Neat.

A Smile Is The Chosen Vehicle Of All Ambiguities.

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.

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.

...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.

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

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

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

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.

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!

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.

For My Part I Love Sleepy Fellows, And The More Ignorant The Better. Damn Your Wide-awake And Knowing Chaps. As For Sleepiness, Itis One Of The Noblest Qualities Of Humanity. There Is Something Sociable About It, Too. Think Of Those Sensible & Sociable Millions Of Good Fellows All Taking A Good Long Friendly Snooze Together, Under The Sod--no Quarrels, No Imaginary Grievances, No Envies, Heart-burnings, & Thinking How Much Better That Other Chap Is Off--none Of This: But All Equally Free-&-easy, They Sleep Away & Reel Off Their Nine Knots An Hour, In Perfect Amity.

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

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.

He Says No! In Thunder; But The Devil Himself Cannot Make Him Say Yes.

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.

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

The Entire Merit Of A Man Can Never Be Made Known; Nor The Sum Of His Demerits, If He Have Them. We Are Only Known By Our Names; As Letters Sealed Up, We But Read Each Other's Superscriptions.

Great Towers Take Time To Construct.

Books, Gentlemen, Are A Species Of Men, And Introduced To Them You Circulate In The "very Best Society" That This World Can Furnish, Without The Intolerable Infliction Of "dressing" To Go Into It. In Your Shabbiest Coat And Cosiest Slippers You May Socially Chat Even With The Fastidious Earl Of Chesterfield, And Lounging Under A Tree Enjoy The Divinest Intimacy With My Late Lord Of Verulam.

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.

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.

Truth Is In Things, And Not In Words.

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

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.

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.

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

We Die Of Too Much Life.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Courage Is The Most Common And Vulgar Of The Virtues.

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

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.

The Earliest Instinct Of The Child, And The Ripest Experience Of Age, Unite In Affirming Simplicity To Be The Truest And Profoundest Part For Man. Likewise This Simplicity Is So Universal And All-containing As A Rule For Human Life, That The Subtlest Bad Man, And The Purest Good Man, As Well As The Profoundest Wise Man, Do All Alike Present It On That Side Which They Socially Turn To The Inquisitive And Unscrupulous World.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

Let America First Praise Mediocrity Even, In Her Children, Before She Praises... The Best Excellence In The Children Of Any Other Land.

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

A Man Can Be Honest In Any Sort Of Skin.

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.

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.

Yet Habit - Strange Thing! What Cannot Habit Accomplish?

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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?).

Students Of History Are Horror-struck At The Massacres Of Old; But In The Shambles, Men Are Being Murdered To-day.

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.

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

True Work Is The Necessity Of Poor Humanity's Earthly Condition. The Dignity Is In Leisure. Besides, 99 Hundredths Of All The Work Done In The World Is Either Foolish And Unnecessary, Or Harmful And Wicked.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

It Is The Horrible Texture Of A Fabric That Should Be Woven Of Ships' Cables And Hawsers. A Polar Wind Blows Through It, And Birds Of Prey Hover Over It.

Youth Is Immortal; Tis The Elderly Only Grow Old!

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

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.

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

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 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.

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

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.

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.

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.

Ah, Bartleby! Ah, Humanity!

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

Nothing May Help Or Heal While Amor Incensed Remembers Wrong.

We Die, Because We Live.

Life’s A Voyage That’s Homeward Bound.

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

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.

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

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.

When The Inhabitants Of Some Sequestered Island First Descry The "big Canoe" Of The European Rolling Through The Blue Waters Towards Their Shores, They Rush Down To The Beach In Crowds, And With Open Arms Stand Ready To Embrace The Strangers. Fatal Embrace! They Fold To Their Bosoms The Vipers Whose Sting Is Destined To Poison All Their Joys; And The Instinctive Feeling Of Love Within Their Breasts Is Soon Converted Into The Bitterest Hate.

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

In Our Man-of-war World, Life Comes In At One Gangway And Death Goes Overboard At The Other. Under The Man-of-war Scourge, Cursesmix With Tears; And The Sigh And The Sob Furnish The Bass To The Shrill Octave Of Those Who Laugh To Drown Buried Griefs Of Their Own.

Seat Thyself Sultanically Among The Moons Of Saturn, And Take High Abstracted Man Alone; And He Seems A Wonder, A Grandeur, And A Woe. But From That Same Point, Take Mankind In Mass, And For The Most Part, They Seem A Mob Of Unnecessary Duplicates, Both Contemporary And Hereditary.

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

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.

Honor Lies In The Mane Of A Horse.

When The Passage "all Men Are Born Free And Equal," When That Passage Was Being Written Were Not Some Of The Signers Legalised Owners Of Slaves?

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

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

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