Quotes from Fitz Hugh Ludlow

It is this process of symbolization which, in certain hasheesh states, gives every tree and house, every pebble and leaf, every footprint, feature, and gesture, a significance beyond mere matter or form, which possesses an inconceivable force of tortures or of happiness.

But of the stimulus of drugs, of potions, beware. For the sake of that very majesty with which you justly wish to aggrandize your soul, beware. Their fountains will be presently exhausted, and then you shall helplessly beat your breast, as without possibility of arising from the brink you draw in their foul, their maddening lees, and curse yourself for slaying those noble powers which it was your longing to strengthen, to nourish, and to clarify.

Yet if there be one voice which can speak from the gateway of a dangerous avenue to its satisfaction, that can say, "Ho there! pass by; I have tried this way; it leads at last into poisonous wildernesses," in the name of Heaven let it be raised.

There is reason to fear that men love better to investigate how muslins, hay-rakes, and, above all and inclusive of all, money may be made, than how their own minds are constructed

In absolute incommunicableness it stood apart, a thought, a system of thought which as yet had no symbol in spoken language

I am about to reveal to you," I commenced, "something which I would not for my life allow to come to other ears. Do you pledge me your eternal silence?" "I do; what is the matter?" "I have been taking hasheesh—Cannabis Indica, and I fear that I am going to die.

There are a thousand ways in which his neighbours can evaporate the essence which is all in all to him, while they at the same time give to his scenery ponderable value which to them is worth far more

The man of visionary mind may sit down before one solitary cabbage, and find food for his thought, if not for his palate, in the reflection, "Truly thou mightest have been my brother.