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 enemie….

Genius is full of trash..

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..

Is he mad? Anyway there's something on his mind, as sure as there must be something on a deck when it cracks..

The western spirit is, or will yet be (for no other is, or can be) the true American one..

All Profound things, and emotions of things are preceded and attended by Silence... Silence is the general consecration of the universe. Silence is t….

Our souls belong to our bodies, not our bodies to our souls..

The man that has anything bountifully laughable about him, be sure there is more in that man than you perhaps think for..

The phantom-host has faded quite, Splendor and Terror gone-- Portent or promise--and gives way To pale, meek Dawn..

...in certain moods, no man can weigh this world without throwing in something, somehow like Original Sin, to strike the uneven balance..

Ah, Bartleby! Ah, humanity!.

Top-heavy was the ship as a dinnerless student with all Aristotle in his head..

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..

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 cunn….

People seem to have a great love for names. For to know a great many names seems to look like knowing a good many things..

In the operative opinion of the world, he who is already fully provided with what is necessary for him, that man shall have more;while he who is depl….

It is not the purpose of literature to purvey news. For news consult the Almanac de Gotha..

all mankind, not excluding Americans, are sinners--miserable sinners, as even no few Bostonians themselves nowadays contritely respond in the liturgy..

Of all human events, perhaps, the publication of a first volume of verses is the most insignificant; but though a matter of no moment to the world, i….

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 sl….

Civilization has not ever been the brother of equality. Freedom was born among the wild eyries in the mountains; and barbarous tribes have sheltered ….