But as in landlessness alone resides the highest truth, shoreless, indefinite as God - so better is it to perish in that howling infinite, than be in….

To treat of human actions is to deal wholly with second causes..

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 d….

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..

It is the easiest thing in the world for a man to look as if he had a great secret in him..

I don't know but a book in a man's brain is better off than a book bound in calf--at any rate it is safer from criticism. And taking a book off the b….

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..

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..

When I think of this life I have led; the desolation of solitude it has been; the masoned, walled-town of a Captain's exclusiveness, which admits but….

It is often to be observed, that as in digging for precious metals in the mines, much earthly rubbish has first to be troublesomely handled and throw….

That mortal man who hath more of joy than sorrow in him, that mortal man cannot be true--not true, or undeveloped..

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..

It is better to fail in originality, than to succeed in imitation. He who has never failed somewhere, that man can not be great. Failure is the true ….

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 fab….

All visible objects, man, are but as pasteboard masks. But in each event — in the living act, the undoubted deed — there, some unknown but still reas….

At length I fell asleep, with the volume in my hand; and never slept so sound before.

What like a bullet can undeceive!.

I have written a wicked book, and feel spotless as the lamb..

I rejoice in my spine, as in the firm audacious staff of that flag which I fling half out to the world..

Until we understand that our grief outweighs a thousand joys, we will never understand what Christianity is all about..

Wag the world how it will, Leaves must be green in Spring..