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Of all the preposterous assumptions of humanity over humanity, nothing exceeds most of the criticisms made on the habits of the poor by the well-housed, well- warmed, and well-fed.

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
Humanity
Exceed
Knowledge
Feds
Poor
Habits
Housed
Inspirational
Assumption
Criticisms
Wells
Management
Preposterous
Well
Criticism
Warmed
Nothing
Habit
Exceeds
Made
Learning
Assumptions

More quotes by Herman Melville

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He who goes oftenest round Cape Horn goes the most circumspectly.
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O Death, the Consecrator! Nothing so sanctifies a name As to be written--Dead. Nothing so wins a life from blame, So covers it from wrath and shame, As doth the burial-bed.
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Madman! Look through my eyes if thou hast none of thine own.
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To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme. No great and enduring volume can ever be written on the flea, though many there be that have tried it.
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Is he mad? Anyway there's something on his mind, as sure as there must be something on a deck when it cracks.
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I do not think I have any uncharitable prejudice against the rattlesnake, still, I should not like to be one.
Herman Melville
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In our man-of-war world, Life comes in at one gangway and Death goes overboard at the other. Under the man-of-war scourge, cursesmix with tears and the sigh and the sob furnish the bass to the shrill octave of those who laugh to drown buried griefs of their own.
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The lightning flashes through my skull mine eyeballs ache and ache my whole beaten brain seems as beheaded, and rolling on some stunning ground.
Herman Melville
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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.
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The symmetry of form attainable in pure fiction can not so readily be achieved in a narration essentially having less to do with fable than with fact. Truth uncompromisingly told will always have its ragged edges.
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In armies, navies, cities, or families, in nature herself, nothing more relaxes good order than misery.
Herman Melville
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And yet self-knowledge is thought by some not so easy. Who knows, my dear sir, but for a time you may have taken yourself for somebody else? Stranger things have happened.
Herman Melville
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Let me look into a human eye it is better than to gaze into sea or sky better than to gaze upon God.
Herman Melville
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Our institutions have a potent digestion, and may in time convert and assimilate to good all elements thrown in, however originally alien.
Herman Melville
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There's magic in the water that draws all men away form the land, that leads them over hills, down creeks and streams and rivers to the sea.
Herman Melville
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Soldier or sailor, the fighting man is but a fiend and the staff and body-guard of the Devil musters many a baton.
Herman Melville
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In our own hearts, we mold the whole world's hereafters and in our own hearts we fashion our own gods.
Herman Melville
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You cannot hide the soul.
Herman Melville
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Dollars damn me and the malicious Devil is forever grinning in upon me, holding the door ajar. ... What I feel most moved to write, that is banned - it will not pay. Yet, altogether, write the other way I cannot. So the product is a final hash, and all my books are botches.
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People think that if a man has undergone any hardship, he should have a reward but for my part, if I have done the hardest possible day's work, and then come to sit down in a corner and eat my supper comfortably -why, then I don't think I deserve any reward for my hard day's work -for am I not now at peace? Is not my supper good?
Herman Melville