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Man, in the ideal, is so noble and so sparkling, such a grand and glowing creature, that over any ignominious blemish in him all his fellows should run to throw their costliest robes.

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
Creatures
Glowing
Mankind
Grand
Running
Creature
Men
Ideal
Costliest
Fellows
Ignominious
Throw
Blemish
Noble
Sparkling
Ideals
Robes

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There are two places in the world where men can most effectively disappear - the city of London and the South Seas.
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Thinking is, or ought to be, a coolness and a calmness and our poor hearts throb, and our poor brains beat too much for that.
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for there is no folly of the beast of the earth which is not infinitely outdone by the madness of men
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We cannot live for ourselves alone.
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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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Let me look into a human eye it is better than to gaze into sea or sky better than to gaze upon God.
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Of all human events, perhaps, the publication of a first volume of verses is the most insignificant but though a matter of no moment to the world, it is still of some concern to the author.
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He who is ready to despair in solitary peril, plucks up a heart in the presence of another. In a plurality of comrades is much countenance and consolation.
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Are there no Moravians in the Moon, that not a missionary has yet visited this poor pagan planet of ours, to civilise civilisation and christianise Christendom?
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Will you, or will you not, quit me? I now demanded in a sudden passion, advancing close to him. I would prefer not to quit you, he replied, gently emphasizing the not.
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One trembles to think of that mysterious thing in the soul, which seems to acknowledge no human jurisdiction, but in spite of the individual's own innocence self, will still dream horrid dreams, and mutter unmentionable thoughts.
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Whenever we discover a dislike in us, toward any one, we should ever be a little suspicious of ourselves.
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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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The easiest way of life is the best.
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True places are not found on maps.
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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?
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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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Be sure of this, O young ambition, all mortal greatness is but disease.
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Is there some principal of nature which states that we never know the quality of what we have until it is gone?
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That author who draws a character, even though to common view incongruous in its parts, as the flying-squirrel, and, at differentperiods, as much at variance with itself as the caterpillar is with the butterfly into which it changes, may yet, in so doing, be not false but faithful to facts.
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