Thus it often is, that the constant friction of illiberal minds wears out at last the best resolves of the more generous.
Struck dead by an angel of God! Yet the angel must hang!
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.
The drama’s done. Why then here does any one step forth? – Because one did survive the wreck.
Immortality is but ubiquity in time.
The easiest way of life is the best.
In time of peril, like the needle to the loadstone, obedience, irrespective of rank, generally flies to him who is best fitted to command.
In armies, navies, cities, or families, in nature herself, nothing more relaxes good order than misery.
Truth is ever incoherent, and when the big hearts strike together, the concussion is a little stunning.
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.
Yea, foolish mortals, Noah’s flood is not yet subsided; two thirds of the fair world it yet covers.
Nothing may help or heal While Amor incensed remembers wrong.
Let America add Mexico to Texas, and pile Cuba upon Canada; let the English overswarm all India, and hang out their blazing banner from the sun; two thirds of this terraqueous globe are the Nantucketer’s. For the sea is his; he owns it.
Amity itself can only be maintained by reciprocal respect, and true friends are punctilious equals.
The terrors of truth and dart of death To faith alike are vain.
To treat of human actions is to deal wholly with second causes.
Everyone knows that in most people’s estimation, to do anything cooly is to do it genteelly.
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.
Give me a condor’s quill! Give me Vesuvius crater for an inkstand!
The fact is, that among his hunters at least, the whale would by all hands be considered a noble dish, were there not so much of him; but when you come to sit down before a meat-pie nearly one hundred feet long, it takes away your appetite.