Nothing can lift the heart of man like manhood in a fellow man.

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 brain, is akin to the ticklish & dangerous business of taking an old painting off a panel--you have to scrape off the whole brain in order to get at it with due safety--& even then, the painting may not be worth the trouble.

Thrusted light is worse than presented pistols.

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.

War should be carried on like a monsoon; one changeless determination of every particle towards the one unalterable aim.

For as this appalling ocean surrounds the verdant land, so in the soul of man there lies one insular Tahiti, full of peace and joy, but encompassed by all the horrors of the half known life.

Yea, foolish mortals, Noah's flood is not yet subsided; two thirds of the fair world it yet covers.