Quote

To treat of human actions is to deal wholly with second causes.

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
Deal
Second
Deals
Causes
Wholly
Action
Treat
Human
Treats
Humans
Deeds
Actions

More quotes by Herman Melville

Image
For in tremendous extremities human souls are like drowning men well enough they know they are in peril well enough they know the causes of that peril--nevertheless, the sea is the sea, and these drowning men do drown.
Herman Melville
Image
If there be any thing a man might well pray against, that thing is the responsive gratification of some of the devoutest prayers of his youth.
Herman Melville
Image
Students of history are horror-struck at the massacres of old but in the shambles, men are being murdered to-day.
Herman Melville
Image
We die of too much life.
Herman Melville
Image
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.)
Herman Melville
Image
Immortality is but ubiquity in time.
Herman Melville
Image
Where is there such an one who has not a thousand times been struck with a sort of infidel idea, that whatever other worlds God may be Lord of, he is not the Lord of this for else this world would seem to give the lie to Him so utterly repugnant seem its ways to the instinctively known ways of Heaven.
Herman Melville
Image
Whenever we discover a dislike in us, toward any one, we should ever be a little suspicious of ourselves.
Herman Melville
Image
A thing may be incredible and still be true sometimes it is incredible because it is true.
Herman Melville
Image
Benevolent desires, after passing a certain point, can not undertake their own fulfillment without incurring the risk of evils beyond those sought to be remedied.
Herman Melville
Image
In armies, navies, cities, or families, in nature herself, nothing more relaxes good order than misery.
Herman Melville
Image
Is there some principal of nature which states that we never know the quality of what we have until it is gone?
Herman Melville
Image
To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme.
Herman Melville
Image
All Profound things, and emotions of things are preceded and attended by Silence.
Herman Melville
Image
No town-bred dandy will compare with a country-bred one- I mean a downright bumpkin dandy- a fellow that, in the dog-days of summer, will mow his two acres in buckskin gloves for fear of tanning his hands.
Herman Melville
Image
He knows himself, and all that's in him, who knows adversity.
Herman Melville
Image
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.
Herman Melville
Image
Swerve me? The path to my fixed purpose is laid with iron rails, whereon my soul is grooved to run. Over unsounded gorges, through the rifled hearts of mountains, under torrents' beds, unerringly I rush! Naught's an obstacle, naught's an angle to the iron way!
Herman Melville
Image
How feeble is all language to describe the horrors we inflict upon these wretches, whom we mason up in the cells of our prisons, and condemn to perpetual solitude in the very heart of our population.
Herman Melville
Image
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.
Herman Melville