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There are times when even the most potent governor must wink at transgression, in order to preserve the laws inviolate for the future.

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
Preserves
Inviolate
Laws
Winking
Law
Wink
Future
Transgression
Times
Potent
Order
Governor
Must
Governors
Even
Preserve

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For whatever is truly wondrous and fearful in man, never yet was put into words or books.
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At my years, and with my disposition, or rather, constitution, one gets to care less and less for everything except downright goodfeeling. Life is so short, and so ridiculous and irrational (from a certain point of view) that one knows not what to make of it, unless--well, finish the sentence for yourself.
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The ancients of the ideal description, instead of trying to turn their impracticable chimeras, as does the modern dreamer, into social and political prodigies, deposited them in great works of art, which still live while states and constitutions have perished, bequeathing to posterity not shameful defects but triumphant successes.
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I baptize you not in the name of the father, but in the name of the devil. (Ego baptizo te in nomine patris, sed in nomine diaboli.)
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All things that God would have us do are hard for us to do--remember that--and hence, he oftener commands us than endeavours to persuade.
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Leviathan is not the biggest fish — I have heard of Krakens.
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My means are sane, my motives and my object mad.
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It is plain and demonstrable, that much ale is not good for Yankee, and operates differently upon them from what it does upon a Briton ale must be drank in a fog and a drizzle.
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