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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.

-Herman Melville

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When The Inhabitants Of

Herman Melville

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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.

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

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

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.

Where Lies The Final Harbor, Whence We Unmoor No More?

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.

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.

There Seems No Reason Why Patriotism And Narrowness Should Go Together, Or Why Intellectual Impartiality Should Be Confounded With Political Trimming, Or Why Serviceable Truth Should Keep Cloistered Be A Cause Not Partisan.

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

Prayer Draws Us Near To Our Own Souls.

Boy, Take My Advice, And Never Try To Invent Any Thing But--happiness.

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

Human Madness Is Oftentimes A Cunning And Most Feline Thing

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

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.

Never Joke At Funerals, Or During Business Transactions.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

The Friendship Of Fine-hearted, Generous Boys, Nurtured Amid The Romance-engendering Comforts And Elegancies Of Life, Sometimes Transcends The Bounds Of Mere Boyishness, And Revels For A While In The Empyrean Of A Love Which Only Comes Short, By One Degree, Of The Sweetest Sentiment Entertained Between The Sexes.

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

Our Institutions Have A Potent Digestion, And May In Time Convert And Assimilate To Good All Elements Thrown In, However Originally Alien.

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.

Faith And Philosophy Are Air, But Events Are Brass.

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

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

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.

God Is Liberal Of Color; So Should Man Be.

I Have The Satisfaction Of Knowing That It Is All Right; That Everybody Else Is One Way Or Other Served In Much The Same Way--either In A Physical Or Metaphysical Point Of View, That Is; And So The Universal Thump Is Passed Round, And All Hands Should Rub Each Other's Shoulder-blades, And Be Content.

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

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

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.

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

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

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 Is No Figure More Common In Scripture, And None More Beautiful, Than That By Which Christ Is Likened Unto Light. Incomprehensible In Its Nature, Itself The First Visible, And That By Which All Things Are Seen, Light Represents To Us Christ. Whose Generation None Can Declare, But Who Must Shine Upon Us Ere We Can Know Aught Aright, Whether Of Things Divine Or Human.

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

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

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

In Thoughts Of The Visions Of The Night, I Saw Long Rows Of Angels In Paradise, Each With His Hands In A Jar Of Spermaceti.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

Struck Dead By An Angel Of God! Yet The Angel Must Hang!

Surely A Gentle Sister Is The Second Best Gift To A Man; And It Is First In Point Of Occurrence; For The Wife Comes After.

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

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.

Heaven Have Mercy On Us All - Presbyterians And Pagans Alike - For We Are All Somehow Dreadfully Cracked About The Head, And Sadly Need Mending.

For There Is No Folly Of The Beast Of The Earth Which Is Not Infinitely Outdone By The Madness Of Men

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

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

What Troops Of Generous Boys In Happiness Thus Bred Saturnians Through Life's Tempe Led, Went From The North And Came From The South, With Golden Mottoes In The Mouth, To Lie Down Midway On A Bloody Bed.

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

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.

All Truth Is Profound.

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

Top-heavy Was The Ship As A Dinnerless Student With All Aristotle In His Head.

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.

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.

As A Man-of-war That Sails Through The Sea, So This Earth That Sails Through The Air. We Mortals Are All On Board A Fast-sailing,never-sinking World-frigate, Of Which God Was The Shipwright; And She Is But One Craft In A Milky-way Fleet, Of Which God Is The Lord High Admiral.

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.

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

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.

I Would Prefer Not To.

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.

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

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

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.

Did All The Lets And Bars Appear To Every Just Or Larger End, Whence Should Come The Trust And Cheer? Youth Must Its Ignorant Impulse Lend-- Age Finds Place In The Rear. All Wars Are Boyish, And Are Fought By Boys, The Champions And Enthusiasts Of The State

For As This Appalling Ocean Surrounds The Verdant Land, So In The Soul Of Man There Lies One Insular Tahiti, Full Of Peace And Joy, But Encompassed By All The Horrors Of The Half Known Life.

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.

If Not Against Us, Nature Is Not For Us.

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.

My Means Are Sane, My Motives And My Object Mad.

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.

What Man Who Carries A Heavenly Soul In Him, Has Not Groaned To Perceive, That Unless He Committed A Sort Of Suicide As To The Practical Things Of This World, He Never Can Hope To Regulate His Earthly Conduct By That Same Heavenly Soul?

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

Might Have Been

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.

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.

You Cannot Hide The Soul.

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

Beware The People Weeping When They Bare The Iron Hand.

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

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.

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.

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

Those Peculiar Social Sensibilities Nourished By Our Own Peculiar Political Principles, While They Enhance The True Dignity Of A Prosperous American, Do But Minister To The Added Wretchedness Of The Unfortunate; First, By Prohibiting Their Acceptance Of What Little Random Relief Charity May Offer; And, Second, By Furnishing Them With The Keenest Appreciation Of The Smarting Distinction Between Their Ideal Of Universal Equality And Their Grind-stone Experience Of The Practical Misery And Infamy Of Poverty.

But 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.

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

Cannibalism To A Certain Moderate Extent Is Practised Among Several Of The Primitive Tribes In The Pacific, But It Is Upon The Bodies Of Slain Enemies Alone; And Horrible And Fearful As The Custom Is, Immeasurably As It Is To Be Abhorred And Condemned, Still I Assert That Those Who Indulge In It Are In Other Respects Humane And Virtuous.

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

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.

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

And What Is It, Thought I, After All! It’s Only His Outside; A Man Can Be Honest In Any Sort Of Skin.

But Even So, Amid The Tornadoed Atlantic Of My Being, Do I Myself Still For Ever Centrally Disport In Mute Calm; And While Ponderous Planets Of Unwaning Woe Revolve Round Me, Deep Down And Deep Inland There I Still Bathe Me In Eternal Mildness Of Joy.

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

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.

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

Nature Is Nobody's Ally.

Fame Is An Accident; Merit A Thing Absolute.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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?).

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.

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

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

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

An Indiscriminate Distrust Of Human Nature Is The Worst Consequence Of A Miserable Condition, Whether Brought About By Innocence Or Guilt. And Though Want Of Suspicion More Than Want Of Sense, Sometimes Leads A Man Into Harm; Yet Too Much Suspicion Is As Bad As Too Little Sense.

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.

Truth Is In Things, And Not In Words.

A Good Laugh Is A Mighty Good Thing, And Rather Too Scarce A Good Thing; The More's The Pity. So, If Any One Man, In His Own Proper Person, Afford Stuff For A Good Joke To Anybody, Let Him Not Be Backward, But Let Him Cheerfully Allow Himself To Spend And Be Spent In That Way. And The Man That Has Anything Bountifully Laughable About Him, Be Sure There Is More In That Man Than You Perhaps Think For.

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.

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

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!

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

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

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.

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.

We May Have Civilized Bodies And Yet Barbarous Souls.

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.

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

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

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

Zeal Is Not Of Necessity Religion, Neither Is It Always Of The Same Essence With Poetry Or Patriotism.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

Thinking Is, Or Ought To Be, A Coolness And A Calmness; And Our Poor Hearts Throb, And Our Poor Brains Beat Too Much For That.

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

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

A Smile Is The Chosen Vehicle Of All Ambiguities.

Woe To Him Who Seeks To Please Rather Than Appall.

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

It Is-or Seems To Be-a Wise Sort Of Thing, To Realise That All That Happens To A Man In This Life Is Only By Way Of Joke, Especially His Misfortunes, If He Have Them. And It Is Also Worth Bearing In Mind, That The Joke Is Passed Round Pretty Liberally & Impartially, So That Not Very Many Are Entitled To Fancy That They In Particular Are Getting The Worst Of It.

Silence Is The Only Voice Of Our God.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

...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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

The Consciousness Of Being Deemed Dead, Is Next To The Presumable Unpleasantness Of Being So In Reality. One Feels Like His Own Ghost Unlawfully Tenanting A Defunct Carcass.

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

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.

I Try All Things, I Achieve What I Can.

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.

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.

The Urbane Activity With Which A Man Receives Money Is Really Marvelous, Considering That We So Earnestly Believe Money To Be The Root Of All Earthly Ills, And That On No Account Can A Monied Man Enter Heaven. Ah! How Cheerfully We Consign Ourselves To Perdition!

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

We Die, Because We Live.

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.

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

Ah, Bartleby! Ah, Humanity!

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

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.

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

Let Us Speak, Though We Show All Our Faults And Weaknesses, - For It Is A Sign Of Strength To Be Weak, To Know It, And Out With It - Not In A Set Way And Ostentatiously, Though, But Incidentally And Without Premeditation.

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.

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

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

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

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?

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

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.

A Man Can Be Honest In Any Sort Of Skin.

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