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There are some persons in this world, who, unable to give better proof of being wise, take a strange delight in showing what they think they have sagaciously read in mankind by uncharitable suspicions of them.

Herman Melville

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Herman Melville
Age: 72 †
Born: 1819
Born: August 1
Died: 1891
Died: September 28
Art Collector
Essayist
Lecturer
Literary Critic
Novelist
Poet
Sailor
Teacher
Writer
Manhattan borough
New York City
Hermann Melville
Herman Melvill
Take
Mankind
Giving
Strange
Uncharitable
Think
Wise
Suspicions
Thinking
Literature
Suspicion
World
Read
Unable
Give
Showing
Persons
Proof
Better
Delight

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He knows himself, and all that's in him, who knows adversity.
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The march of conquest through wild provinces, may be the march of Mind but not the march of Love.
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Whenever we discover a dislike in us, toward any one, we should ever be a little suspicious of ourselves.
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You know nothing till you know all which is the reason we never know any thing.
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Civilization has not ever been the brother of equality. Freedom was born among the wild eyries in the mountains and barbarous tribes have sheltered under her wings, when the enlightened people of the plain have nestled under different pinions.
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When beholding the tranquil beauty and brilliancy of the ocean’s skin, one forgets the tiger heart that pants beneath it and would not willingly remember that this velvet paw but conceals a remorseless fang.
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This whole act's immutably decreed. 'Twas rehearsed by thee and me a billion years before this ocean rolled. Fool! I am the Fates' lieutenant I act under orders.
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To be called one thing, is oftentimes to be another.
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In one word, Queequeg, said I, rather digressively hell is an idea first born on an undigested apple-dumpling and since then perpetuated through the hereditary dyspepsias nurtured by Ramadans.
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All wars are boyish, and are fought by boys, The champions and enthusiasts of the state: Turbid ardors and vain joys Not barrenly abate-- Stimulants to the power mature, Preparatives of fate.
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Failure is the test of greatness.
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Standing navies, as well as standing armies, serve to keep alive the spirit of war even in the meek heart of peace. In its very embers and smoulderings, they nourish that fatal fire, and half-pay officers, as the priests of Mars, yet guard the temple, though no god be there.
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I have written a wicked book, and feel spotless as the lamb.
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...The silent reminiscence of hardships departed, is sweeter than the presence of delight.
Herman Melville
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People seem to have a great love for names. For to know a great many names seems to look like knowing a good many things.
Herman Melville
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Who in the rainbow can draw the line where the violet tint ends and the orange tint begins? Distinctly we see the difference of the colors, but where exactly does the one first blendingly enter into the other? So with sanity and insanity.
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A true military officer is in one particular like a true monk. Not with more self-abnegation will the latter keep his vows of monastic obedience than the former his vows of allegiance to martial duty.
Herman Melville
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Silence is the only Voice of our God.
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I could...see in Emerson...that had he lived in those days when the world was made, he might have offered some valuable suggestions.
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The easiest way of life is the best.
Herman Melville