A man thinks that by mouthing hard words he understands hard things.

A smile is the chosen vehicle of all ambiguities.

A whale ship was my Yale College and my Harvard.

All deep, earnest thinking is but the intrepid effort of the soul to keep the open independence of her sea, while the wildest winds of heaven and earth conspire to cast her on t ...

And yet self-knowledge is thought by some not so easy. Who knows, my dear sir, but for a time you may have taken yourself for somebody else? Stranger things have happened. "

Art is the objectification of feeling.

At sea a fellow comes out. Salt water is like wine, in that respect.

Better to sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunken Christian.

Do not presume, well-housed, well-warmed, and well-fed, to criticize the poor.

Faith, like a jackal, feeds among the tombs, and even from these dead doubts she gathers her most vital hope.