How we cite our quotes: (Chapter, Paragraph)
Quote #1
"—tell me, was not that humor, of Diogenes, which led him to live, a merry-andrew, in the flower-market, better than that of the less wise Athenian, which made him a skulking scare-crow in pine-barrens? An injudicious gentleman, Lord Timon." (24, 56)
Name-drop time: who exactly is Diogenes? Glad you asked. He's a cynic from classical Greece who wasn't too impressed with society or its leaders, people like Alexander the Great. His claim to fame? He hung out in a tub in his birthday suit in public making a ruckus.
So why's Diogenes brought up here? Well, Frank is trying to get Pitch to party—you know, be the opposite of a misanthrope. In order to do that, he says that if Pitch is going to be a grumpus, then it's better to be a grumpus like Diogenes, who used to hang out being wild and crazy in the town center, rather than a grumpus like Timon of Athens, another misanthrope who ran away into the woods and bellyached all the time about how bad everybody was. He didn't come to a good end.
Quote #2
"Your hand!" seizing it.
"Bless me, how cordial a squeeze. It is agreed we shall be brothers, then?"
"As much so as a brace of misanthropes can be," with another and terrific squeeze. "I had thought that the moderns had degenerated beneath the capacity of misanthropy. Rejoiced, though but in one instance, and that disguised, to be undeceived." (24, 57-59)
Pitch misunderstands Frank. When Frank invokes Diogenes, Pitch thinks that after all, Frank must just be a regular misanthrope himself. Apparently, Pitch is cool with a brotherhood if that bro-life means hating on others. For Pitch, this "revelation" gives him faith in humanity, that there are still people out there who…hate humanity. Irony alert.
Quote #3
"No man is a stranger. You accost anybody. Warm and confiding, you wait not for measured advances. And though, indeed, mine, in this instance, have met with no very hilarious encouragement, yet the principle of a true citizen of the world is still to return good for ill." (24, 10)
Frank is explaining what it's like to be a cosmopolitan. The main job requirement is to be ready to be awesome to others, even if they're bags of doo-doo to you. That's some major charity, in the form of generosity of spirit—and it's a fairly tall order.
Quote #4
"For, comparatively inexperienced as you are, my dear young friend, did you never observe how little, very little, confidence, there is? I mean between man and man—more particularly between stranger and stranger. In a sad world it is the saddest fact. Confidence! I have sometimes almost thought that confidence is fled; that confidence is the New Astrea—emigrated—vanished—gone." Then softly sliding nearer, with the softest air, quivering down and looking up, "could you now, my dear young sir, under such circumstances, by way of experiment, simply have confidence in me?" (5, 17)
Weeds, our resident "unfortunate man," is punch-drunk on how much he loves people, and he's really stressed about the fact that so few humans trust one another in this world. Here, he's giving the scholar an earful about how important it is that not only friends but perfect strangers too put faith in one another.
Quote #5
"—My dear fellow, tell me how I can serve you."
"By dispatching yourself, Mr. Popinjay-of-the-world, into the heart of the Lunar Mountains. You are another of them. Out of my sight!" (24,10-11)
Nothing like a shove-off when someone offers you his or her goodwill. Pitch is just not having a friendship with Frank. Worse, by telling Frank to go to the Lunar Mountains, Pitch is at once saying, "I want you as far away as outer space," and calling him a lunatic. How rude.
Quote #6
"What, sir, to say nothing more, can one be forever dealing in macassar oil, hair dyes, cosmetics, false moustaches, wigs, and toupees, and still believe that men are wholly what they look to be? What think you, sir, are a thoughtful barber's reflections, when, behind a careful curtain, he shaves the thin, dead stubble off a head, and then dismisses it to the world, radiant in curling auburn? To contrast the shamefaced air behind the curtain, the fearful looking forward to being possibly discovered there by a prying acquaintance, with the cheerful assurance and challenging pride with which the same man steps forth again, a gay deception, into the street, while some honest, shock-headed fellow humbly gives him the wall! Ah, sir, they may talk of the courage of truth, but my trade teaches me that truth sometimes is sheepish. Lies, lies, sir, brave lies are the lions!" (43, 14)
Talk about disillusioned. Years of helping people cover up perceived flaws within the beauty industry has left the barber feeling like no one's the real deal. This kind of distrust breeds misanthropy, because thinking everyone is fake makes it kind of hard to make friends. The barber's also kind of judgmental for someone who's trusted with other people's secrets.
Quote #7
"Is the sight of humanity so very disagreeable to you then? Ah, I may be foolish, but for my part, in all its aspects, I love it. Served up la Pole, or la Moor, la Ladrone, or la Yankee, that good dish, man, still delights me; or rather is man a wine I never weary of comparing and sipping; wherefore am I a pledged cosmopolitan, a sort of London-Dock-Vault connoisseur, going about from Teheran to Natchitoches, a taster of races; in all his vintages, smacking my lips over this racy creature, man, continually. But as there are teetotal palates which have a distaste even for Amontillado, so I suppose there may be teetotal souls which relish not even the very best brands of humanity." (24, 12)
Frank is shocked—shocked—at Pitch's serious lack of interest in making nice with the world. Cue his chance to talk about how much and in what manner he loves mankind. In this description, we can't help but notice how he's using a lot words associated with tasty snacks. More accurately, beverages. Come to think of it, he loves all the people of the world after "sipping" these great "vintages." Is this a realistic point of view, or is Frank kind of a smarmbot?
Quote #8
"Charity is one thing, and truth is another," rejoined he with the wooden leg: "he's a rascal, I say."
"But why not, friend, put as charitable a construction as one can upon the poor fellow?" said the soldierlike Methodist, with increased difficulty maintaining a pacific demeanor towards one whose own asperity seemed so little to entitle him to it: "he looks honest, don't he?"
"Looks are one thing, and facts are another," snapped out the other perversely; "and as to your constructions, what construction can you put upon a rascal, but that a rascal he is?" (3, 33-35)
Looks like the man with the wooden leg doesn't put much stock in looks. (Has he been chatting with the barber?) He's been using that suspicion to conveniently excuse himself from having to be charitable. If he can't trust people, he figures, then he doesn't have love them.
Quote #9
"Nothing; the foiled wolf's parting howl," said the Methodist. "Spleen, much spleen, which is the rickety child of his evil heart of unbelief: it has made him mad. I suspect him for one naturally reprobate. Oh, friends," raising his arms as in the pulpit, "oh beloved, how are we admonished by the melancholy spectacle of this raver. Let us profit by the lesson; and is it not this: that if, next to mistrusting Providence, there be aught that man should pray against, it is against mistrusting his fellow-man. I have been in mad-houses full of tragic mopers, and seen there the end of suspicion: the cynic, in the moody madness muttering in the corner; for years a barren fixture there; head lopped over, gnawing his own lip, vulture of himself; while, by fits and starts, from the corner opposite came the grimace of the idiot at him." (3, 56)
This here's a big ol' sermon using the grumpy man with the wooden leg as a sort of scapegoat-like example of what not to do. The Righteous trust in Providence, and therefore, they pity others; the "wrong-teous" are moody and make "vultures of" themselves. Um, what? Well, have you ever heard the expression "eat your heart out"? It's kind of like that: you get so upset that your negative vibes start feeding on you until you're kaput.
Quote #10
"No, sir, I am not surprised," said the old man; then added: "from what you say, I see you are something of my way of thinking—you think that to distrust the creature, is a kind of distrusting of the Creator." (45, 32)
This line coming in at the eleventh hour is a pretty neat summation of the pro-confidence camp's stance: when you doubt humans, you doubt the God that made them. Too bad the old man says this immediately before buying a bunch of things (like locks) that demonstrate that the confidence he's got is pretty slim.