Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
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.
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.
The only ugliness is that of the heart, seen through the face. And though beauty be obvious, the only loveliness is invisible.
There is a touch of divinity even in brutes, and a special halo about a horse, that should forever exempt him from indignities.
Delight,--top-gallant delight is to him, who acknowledges no law or lord, but the Lord his God, and is only a patriot to heaven.
It is only when caught in the swift, sudden turn of death, that mortals realise the silent, subtle, ever-present perils of life.
What plays the mischief with the truth is that men will insist upon the universal application of a temporary feeling or opinion.
An intense copper calm, like a universal yellow lotus, was more and more unfolding its noiseless measureless leaves upon the sea.
There is one knows not what sweet mystery about this sea, whose gently awful stirrings seem to speak of some hidden soul beneath.
As for me, I am tormented with an everlasting itch for things remote. I love to sail forbidden seas, and land on barbarous coasts.
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?
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.
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.)
I could...see in Emerson...that had he lived in those days when the world was made, he might have offered some valuable suggestions.
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.
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.
Dream tonight of peacock tails, Diamond fields and spouter whales. Ills are many, blessing few, But dreams tonight will shelter you.
Nobody is so heartily despised as a pusillanimous, lazy, good-for-nothing, land-lubber; a sailor has no bowels of compassion for him.
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.
There are times when even the most potent governor must wink at transgression, in order to preserve the laws inviolate for the future.
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.
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.
Let America first praise mediocrity even, in her children, before she praises... the best excellence in the children of any other land.
...in certain moods, no man can weigh this world without throwing in something, somehow like Original Sin, to strike the uneven balance.
Those of us who always abhorred slavery as an atheistical iniquity, gladly we join in the exulting chorus of humanity over its downfall.
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.
All things that God would have us do are hard for us to do--remember that--and hence, he oftener commands us than endeavours to persuade.
Indolence is heaven 's ally here, And energy the child of hell : The Good Man pouring from his pitcher clear But brims the poisoned well.
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.
In time of peril, like the needle to the loadstone, obedience, irrespective of rank, generally flies to him who is best fitted to command.
Our institutions have a potent digestion, and may in time convert and assimilate to good all elements thrown in, however originally alien.
We are not a nation, so much as a world; for unless we claim all the world for our sire, like Melchisedec, we are without father or mother.
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.
There's magic in the water that draws all men away form the land, that leads them over hills, down creeks and streams and rivers to the sea.
For though consciences are as unlike as foreheads, every intelligence, not including the Scriptural devils who "believe and tremble" has one.
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.
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.
I will live and die by this testimony: that I loved a good conscience; that I never invaded another man's liberty; and that I preserved my own.
The American, who up to the present day, has evinced, in Literature, the largest brain with the largest heart, that man is Nathaniel Hawthorne.
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?
Heaven have mercy on us all - Presbyterians and Pagans alike - for we are all somehow dreadfully cracked about the head, and sadly need mending.
Are not half our lives spent in reproaches for foregone actions, of the true nature and consequences of which we were wholly ignorant at the time?
The lightning flashes through my skull; mine eyeballs ache and ache; my whole beaten brain seems as beheaded, and rolling on some stunning ground.
In this world, shipmates, sin that pays its way can travel freely, and without passport; whereas Virtue, if a pauper, is stopped at all frontiers.
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.
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.
The grand points in human nature are the same to-day they were a thousand years ago. The only variability in them is in expression, not in feature.
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.
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.
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.