Who in the rainbow can draw the line where the violet tint ends and the orange tint begins? Distinctly we see the difference of the colors, but where exactly does the one first blendingly enter into the other? So with sanity and insanity.
To be called one thing, is oftentimes to be another.
There are times when even the most potent governor must wink at transgression, in order to preserve the laws inviolate for the future.
Boy, take my advice, and never try to invent any thing but – happiness.
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.
One of the coolest and wisest hours a man has, is just after he awakes in the morning.
A beautiful woman is born Queen of men and women both, as Mary Stuart was born Queen of Scots, whether men or women.
The only ugliness is that of the heart, seen through the face. And though beauty be obvious, the only loveliness is invisible.
The names of all fine authors are fictitious ones, far more so than that of Junius, – simply standing, as they do, for the mystical, ever-eluding Spirit of all Beauty, which ubiquitously possesses men of genius.
It is with fiction as with religion: it should present another world, and yet one to which we feel the tie.
Is there some principal of nature which states that we never know the quality of what we have until it is gone?
Know, thou, that the lines that live are turned out of a furrowed brow.
Old age is always wakeful; as if, the longer linked with life, the less man has to do with aught that looks like death.
The march of conquest through wild provinces, may be the march of Mind; but not the march of Love.
Ah, Bartleby! Ah, humanity!
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.
You cannot hide the soul.
Book! You lie there; the fact is, you books must know your places. You’ll do to give us the bare words and facts, but we come in to supply the thoughts.
Can it be, that the Greek grammarians invented their dual number for the particular benefit of twins?
An intense copper calm, like a universal yellow lotus, was more and more unfolding its noiseless measureless leaves upon the sea.