Quote

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.

Herman Melville

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
First
Difference
Insanity
Health
Colors
Color
Enter
Tint
Differences
Draw
Distinctly
Lines
Begins
Violet
Ends
Draws
Orange
Doe
Exactly
Rainbow
Firsts
Line
Sanity

More quotes by Herman Melville

Image
At length I fell asleep, with the volume in my hand and never slept so sound before
Herman Melville
Image
Old age is always wakeful as if, the longer linked with life, the less man has to do with aught that looks like death.
Herman Melville
Image
You cannot spill a drop of American blood without spilling the blood of the whole world.... We are not a nation, so much as a world.
Herman Melville
Image
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.
Herman Melville
Image
He, who, in view of its inconsistencies, says of human nature the same that, in view of its contrasts, is said of the divine nature, that it is past finding out, thereby evinces a better appreciation of it than he who, by always representing it in a clear light, leaves it to be inferred that he clearly knows all about it.
Herman Melville
Image
But as in landlessness alone resides the highest truth, shoreless, indefinite as God - so better is it to perish in that howling infinite, than be ingloriously dashed upon the lee, even if that were safety! For worm-like, then, oh! who would craven crawl to land!
Herman Melville
Image
All truth is profound.
Herman Melville
Image
The great God absolute! The centre and circumference of all democracy! His omnipresence, our divine equality!
Herman Melville
Image
There never was a great man yet who spent all his life inland.
Herman Melville
Image
Poor fish of Rodondo! in your victimized confidence, you are of the number of those who inconsiderately trust, while they do not understand, human nature.
Herman Melville
Image
In childhood, death stirred me not in middle age, it pursued me like a prowling bandit on the road now, grown an old man, it boldly leads the way, and ushers me on.
Herman Melville
Image
I am past scorching not easily can’st thou scorch a scar.
Herman Melville
Image
Evil is the chronic malady of the universe, and checked in one place, breaks forth in another.
Herman Melville
Image
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
Image
Struck dead by an angel of God! Yet the angel must hang!
Herman Melville
Image
Think of it. To go down to posterity as a 'man who lived among the cannibals.'
Herman Melville
Image
Zeal is not of necessity religion, neither is it always of the same essence with poetry or patriotism.
Herman Melville
Image
I could...see in Emerson...that had he lived in those days when the world was made, he might have offered some valuable suggestions.
Herman Melville
Image
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.
Herman Melville
Image
...The silent reminiscence of hardships departed, is sweeter than the presence of delight.
Herman Melville