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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.

-Herman Melville

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What Troops Of Generous

Herman Melville

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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.

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

Man, In The Ideal, Is So Noble And So Sparkling, Such A Grand And Glowing Creature, That Over Any Ignominious Blemish In Him All His Fellows Should Run To Throw Their Costliest Robes.

Immortality Is But Ubiquity In Time.

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.

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.

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

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.

Why Did The Old Persians Hold The Sea Holy? Why Did The Greeks Give It A Separate Deity, And Own Brother Jove? Surely All This Is Not Without Meaning. And Still Deeper The Meaning Of That Story Of Narcissus, Who Because He Could Not Grasp The Tormenting Mild Image He Saw In The Fountain, Plunged Into It And Was Drowned. But That Same Image, We Ourselves See In All Rivers And Oceans. It Is The Image Of The Ungraspable Phantom Of Life; And This Is The Key To It All.

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

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

True Places Are Not Found On Maps.

Yet Habit - Strange Thing! What Cannot Habit Accomplish?

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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?

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!

Thou Saw'st The Locked Lovers When Leaping From Their Flaming Ship; Heart To Heart They Sank Beneath The Exulting Wave; True To Each Other, When Heaven Seemed False To Them.

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

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

There Are Certain Queer Times And Occasions In This Strange Mixed Affair We Call Life When A Man Takes His Whole Universe For A Vast Practical Joke.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

Youth Is The Time When Hearts Are Large.

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

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?

To A Sensitive Being, Pity Is Not Seldom Pain.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

He, Who, In View Of Its Inconsistencies, Says Of Human Nature The Same That, In View Of Its Contrasts, Is Said Of The Divine Nature, That It Is Past Finding Out, Thereby Evinces A Better Appreciation Of It Than He Who, By Always Representing It In A Clear Light, Leaves It To Be Inferred That He Clearly Knows All About It.

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

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.

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.

Human Madness Is Oftentimes A Cunning And Most Feline Thing

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.

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.

Honor Lies In The Mane Of A Horse.

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

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

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

For God's Sake, Be Economical With Your Lamps And Candles! Not A Gallon You Burn, But At Least One Drop Of Man's Blood Was Spilled For It.

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.

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

I Try All Things, I Achieve What I Can.

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

A Whale Ship Was My Yale College And My Harvard.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.)

All Truth Is Profound.

If You Are Poor, Avoid Wine As A Costly Luxury; If You Are Rich, Shun It As A Fatal Indulgence. Stick To Plain Water.

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

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

At Sea A Fellow Comes Out. Salt Water Is Like Wine, In That Respect.

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.

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

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

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

If A Well-constituted Individual Refrains From Blazoning Aught Amiss Or Calamitous In His Family, A Nation In The Like Circumstance May Without Reproach Be Equally Discreet.

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.

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.

Beneath Those Stars Is A Universe Of Gliding Monsters.

We Die Of Too Much Life.

Contempt Is As Frequently Produced At First Sight As Love.

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.

This Whole Act's Immutably Decreed. 'twas Rehearsed By Thee And Me A Billion Years Before This Ocean Rolled. Fool! I Am The Fates' Lieutenant; I Act Under Orders.

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

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

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

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.

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.

Warmest Climes But Nurse The Cruellest Fangs: The Tiger Of Bengal Crouches In Spiced Groves Of Ceaseless Verdure. Skies The Most Effulgent But Basket The Deadliest Thunders: Gorgeous Cuba Knows Tornadoes That Never Swept Tame Northern Lands.

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

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

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

Telling The Truth

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.

Genius Is Full Of Trash.

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

Passion, And Passion In Its Profoundest, Is Not A Thing Demanding A Palatial Stage Whereon To Play Its Part. Down Among The Groundlings, Among The Beggars And Rakers Of The Garbage, Profound Passion Is Enacted. And The Circumstances That Provoke It, However Trivial Or Mean, Are No Measure Of Its Power. In The Present Instance The Stage Is A Scrubbed Gun Deck, And One Of The External Provocations A Man-of-war's-man's Spilled Soup.

It Does Seem To Me, That Herein We See The Rare Virtue Of A Strong Individual Vitality, And The Rare Virtue Of Thick Walls, And The Rare Virtue Of Interior Spaciousness. Oh, Man! Admire And Model Thyself After The Whale! Do Thou, Too, Remain Warm Among Ice. Do Thou, Too, Live In This World Without Being Of It. Be Cool At The Equator; Keep Thy Blood Fluid At The Pole. Like The Great Dome Of St. Peter's, And Like The Great Whale, Retain, O Man! In All Seasons A Temperature Of Thine Own.

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.

Only The Man Who Says No Is Free

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

Youth Is Immortal; Tis The Elderly Only Grow Old!

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.

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

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

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.

Forty Years After A Battle It Is Easy For A Non-combatant To Reason About How It Ought To Have Been Fought. It Is Another Thing Personally And Under Fire To Direct The Fighting While Involved In The Obscuring Smoke Of It.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

Whenever I Find Myself Growing Grim About The Mouth; Whenever It Is A Damp, Drizzly November In My Soul; Whenever I Find Myself Involuntarily Pausing Before Coffin Warehouses, And Bringing Up The Rear Of Every Funeral I Meet; And Especially Whenever My Hypos Get Such An Upper Hand Of Me, That It Requires A Strong Moral Principle To Prevent Me From Deliberately Stepping Into The Street, And Methodically Knocking People's Hats Off - Then, I Account It High Time To Get To Sea As Soon As I Can.

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

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

If Not Against Us, Nature Is Not For Us.

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

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

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.

A Man Can Be Honest In Any Sort Of Skin.

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.

Doesn't The Devil Live Forever; Who Ever Heard That The Devil Was Dead? Did You Ever See Any Person Wearing Mourning For The Devil?

The 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.

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

It May Seem Strange That Of All Men Sailors Should Be Tinkering At Their Last Wills And Testaments, But There Are No People In The World More Fond Of That Diversion.

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

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.

The Lightning Flashes Through My Skull; Mine Eyeballs Ache And Ache; My Whole Beaten Brain Seems As Beheaded, And Rolling On Some Stunning Ground.

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.

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

There Are Doubts, Sir, Which, If Man Have Them, It Is Not Man That Can Solve Them.

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!

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.

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.

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

What Like A Bullet Can Undeceive!

The Ancients Of The Ideal Description, Instead Of Trying To Turn Their Impracticable Chimeras, As Does The Modern Dreamer, Into Social And Political Prodigies, Deposited Them In Great Works Of Art, Which Still Live While States And Constitutions Have Perished, Bequeathing To Posterity Not Shameful Defects But Triumphant Successes.

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.

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

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

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

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.

When I Think Of This Life I Have Led; The Desolation Of Solitude It Has Been; The Masoned, Walled-town Of A Captain's Exclusiveness, Which Admits But Small Entrance To Any Sympathy From The Green Country Without - Oh, Weariness! Heaviness! Guinea-coast Slavery Of Solitary Command!

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

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

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

The Easiest Way Of Life Is The Best.

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!

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

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!

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

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.

My Body Is But The Lees Of My Better Being.

For Small Erections May Be Finished By Their First Architects; Grand Ones, True Ones, Ever Leave The Copestone To Posterity. God Keep Me From Ever Completing Anything. This Whole Book Is But A Draught—nay, But The Draught Of A Draught. Oh, Time, Strength, Cash, And Patience!

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

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

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.

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

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

Some Dying Men Are The Most Tyrannical; And Certainly, Since They Will Shortly Trouble Us So Little For Evermore, The Poor Fellows Ought To Be Indulged.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

In Our 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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

Consider The Subtleness Of The Sea; How Its Most Dreaded Creatures Glide Under Water, Unapparent For The Most Part, And Treacherously Hidden Beneath The Loveliest Tints Of Azure. Consider Also The Devilish Brilliance And Beauty Of Many Of Its Most Remorseless Tribes, As The Dainty Embellished Shape Of Many Species Of Sharks. Consider, Once More, The Universal Cannibalism Of The Sea; All Whose Creatures Prey Upon Each Other, Carrying On Eternal War Since The World Began.

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

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

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

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?

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

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