Bartleby, the Scrivener

"At present I would prefer not to be a little reasonable," was his mildly cadaverous reply.

Nothing so aggravates an earnest person as a passive resistance.

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

And here Bartleby makes his home, sole spectator of a solitude which he has seen all populous — a sort of innocent and transformed Marius brooding among the ruins of Carthage!