Amity itself can only be maintained by reciprocal respect, and true friends are punctilious equals.
Herman MelvilleIt 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.
Herman MelvilleWhy did the old Persians hold the sea holy? Why did the Greeks give it a separate deity, and own brother Jove? Surely all this is not without meaning. And still deeper the meaning of that story of Narcissus, who because he could not grasp the tormenting mild image he saw in the fountain, plunged into it and was drowned. But that same image, we ourselves see in all rivers and oceans. It is the image of the ungraspable phantom of life; and this is the key to it all.
Herman Melville