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What man who carries a heavenly soul in him, has not groaned to perceive, that unless he committed a sort of suicide as to the practical things of this world, he never can hope to regulate his earthly conduct by that same heavenly soul?

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
Soul
Practical
Things
Heavenly
Groaned
Perceive
Regulate
Never
Suicide
Earthly
Men
Committed
Carries
World
Unless
Carrie
Sort
Conduct
Hope
Practicals

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For as this appalling ocean surrounds the verdant land, so in the soul of man there lies one insular Tahiti, full of peace and joy, but encompassed by all the horrors of the half known life.
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Surely a gentle sister is the second best gift to a man and it is first in point of occurrence for the wife comes after.
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For though consciences are as unlike as foreheads, every intelligence, not including the Scriptural devils who believe and tremble has one.
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Ah, happiness courts the light so we deem the world is gay. But misery hides aloof so we deem that misery there is none.
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As a man-of-war that sails through the sea, so this earth that sails through the air. We mortals are all on board a fast-sailing,never-sinking world-frigate, of which God was the shipwright and she is but one craft in a Milky-Way fleet, of which God is the Lord High Admiral.
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Is Ahab, Ahab? Is it I, God, or who, that lifts this arm? But if the great sun move not of himself but is an errand-boy in heaven nor one single star can revolve, but by some invisible power how then can this one small heart beat this one small brain think thoughts unless God does that beating, does that thinking, does that living, and not I.
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I have written a wicked book, and feel spotless as the lamb. Ineffable socialities are in me. I would sit down and dine with you and all the gods in old Rome's Pantheon. It is a strange feeling--no hopefulness is in it, no despair. Content--that is it and irresponsibility but without licentious inclination.
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Heaven have mercy on us all - Presbyterians and Pagans alike - for we are all somehow dreadfully cracked about the head, and sadly need mending.
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Love's secrets, being mysteries, ever pertain to the transcendent and the infinite and so they are as airy bridges, by which ourfurther shadows pass over into the regions of the golden mists and exhalations whence all poetical, lovely thoughts are engendered, and drop into us, as though pearls should drop from rainbows.
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The path to my fixed purpose is laid with iron rails whereon my soul is grooved to run
Herman Melville
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Both the ancestry and posterity of Grief go further than the ancestry and posterity of Joy.
Herman Melville
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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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The friendship of fine-hearted, generous boys, nurtured amid the romance-engendering comforts and elegancies of life, sometimes transcends the bounds of mere boyishness, and revels for a while in the empyrean of a love which only comes short, by one degree, of the sweetest sentiment entertained between the sexes.
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We may have civilized bodies and yet barbarous souls.
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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.
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All visible objects, man, are but as pasteboard masks. But in each event — in the living act, the undoubted deed — there, some unknown but still reasoning thing puts forth the mouldings of its features from behind the unreasoning mask.
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A hermitage in the forest is the refuge of the narrow-minded misanthrope a hammock on the ocean is the asylum for the generous distressed.
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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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There is sorrow in the world, but goodness too and goodness that is not greenness, either, no more than sorrow is.
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