“A man so various, that he seemed to be
Not one, but all mankind's epitome;
Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong,
Was everything by starts, and nothing long;
But, in the course of one revolving moon,
Was chemist, fiddler, statesman, and buffoon.”

“In the east the moon was rising, a full moon that lighted the landscape so that he could see every little clump of bushes, every grove of trees. And as he stood there, he realized with a sudden start that the moon was full again, that it was always full, it rose with the setting of the sun and set just before the sun came up, and it was always a great pumpkin of a moon, an eternal harvest moon shining on an eternal autumn world.
The realization that this was so all at once seemed shocking. How was it that he had never noticed this before? Certainly he had been here long enough, had watched the moon often enough to have noticed it. He had been here long enough — and how long had that been, a few weeks, a few months, a year? He found he did not know. He tried to figure back and there was no way to figure back. There were no temporal landmarks. Nothing ever happened to mark one day from the next. Time flowed so smoothly and so uneventfully that it might as well stand still.”

“And so these men of Hindustan
Disputed loud and long,
Each in his own opinion
Exceeding stiff and strong,
Though each was partly in the right
And all were in the wrong. So oft in theologic wars,
The disputants, I ween,
Rail on in utter ignorance
Of what each other mean,
And prate about an Elephant
Not one of them has seen!”

“So long as man remains free he strives for nothing so incessantly and so painfully as to find some one to worship.”

“The theory seems to be that so long as a man is a failure he is one of God's chillun, but that as soon as he has any luck he owes it to the Devil.”

“Everything seemed confused and contradictory, and he longed for one clear command from a divine martinet.”

“A constitutional statesman is in general a man of common opinions and uncommon abilities.”

“I have always been of opinion that a man who desires to get married should know either everything or nothing.”

“Nothing is absolute. Everything changes, everything moves, everything revolves, everything flies and goes away.”

“Oh! My dear! My tis of thee! What a tangled web we weave!

Everyone is the one until the one falls down

Then we're all just "please please please"

The painted rust will only fool the fools for just so long

Eventually, that's when they'll see everything was wrong



Oh! The shame! Humility! What a wicked gang are we!

Like a liar looking down on a thief looking down on a killer looking down on a creep

Oh! This sinking ship will only hold its course for just so long

Eventually, that's when they'll see everything is wrong”