Ah, happiness courts the light, so we deem the world is gay, but misery hides aloof, so we deem that misery there is none. - Herman Melville

What could be more full of meaning? — for the pulpit is ever this earth's foremost part; all the rest come in its rear; the pulpit leads the world.

Because no man can ever feel his own identity aright except his eyes be closed; as if darkness were indeed the proper element of our essences, though light be more congenial to our clayey part.

Whoever is not in the possession of leisure can hardly be said to possess independence. They talk of the dignity of work. Bosh. True Work is the necessity of poor humanity's earthly condition. The dignity is in leisure. Besides, 99 hundreths of all the work done in the world is either foolish and unnecessary, or harmful and wicked.