The human heart is vast enough to contain all the world.

To be a great autocrat you must be a great barbarian.

Any fool can carry on, but a wise man knows how to shorten sail in time.

There is nothing more enticing, disenchanting, and enslaving than the life at sea.

If you don't make mistakes, you don't make anything .

Who would care to question the ground of forgiveness or compassion.

They trespassed upon my thoughts. They were intruders whose knowledge of life was to me an irritating pretense, because I felt so sure they could not possibly know the things I knew. Their bearing, which was simply the bearing of commonplace individuals going about their business in the assurance of perfect safety, was offensive to me like the outrageous flauntings of folly in the face of a danger it is unable to comprehend. I had no particular desire to enlighten them, but I had some difficulty in restraining myself from laughing in their faces, so full of stupid importance.