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All wars are boyish, and are fought by boys, The champions and enthusiasts of the state: Turbid ardors and vain joys Not barrenly abate-- Stimulants to the power mature, Preparatives of fate.

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
State
Fought
War
Mature
Abate
Power
Champion
Enthusiasts
States
Wars
Boyish
Vain
Stimulants
Fate
Ardor
Boys
Champions
Joy
Joys

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In this world of lies, Truth is forced to fly like a scared white doe in the woodlands and only by cunning glimpses will she reveal herself, as in Shakespeare and other masters of the great Art of Telling the Truth, even though it be covertly, and by snatches.
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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 fact is, that among his hunters at least, the whale would by all hands be considered a noble dish, were there not so much of him but when you come to sit down before a meat-pie nearly one hundred feet long, it takes away your appetite.
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Any appellative at all savouring of arbitrary rank is unsuitable to a man of liberal and catholic mind.
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Book! You lie there the fact is, you books must know your places. You'll do to give us the bare words and facts, but we come in to supply the thoughts.
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No philosophers so thoroughly comprehend us as dogs and horses.
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Though the ancients were ignorant of the principles of Christianity there were in them the germs of its spirit.
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All we discover has been with us since the sun began to roll and much we discover, is not worth the discovering.
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True places are not found on maps.
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Cannibalism to a certain moderate extent is practised among several of the primitive tribes in the Pacific, but it is upon the bodies of slain enemies alone and horrible and fearful as the custom is, immeasurably as it is to be abhorred and condemned, still I assert that those who indulge in it are in other respects humane and virtuous.
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It is better to fail in originality, than to succeed in imitation. He who has never failed somewhere, that man can not be great. Failure is the true test of greatness.
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Strange as it may seem, there is nothing in which a young and beautiful female appears to more advantage than in the art of smoking.
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It is with fiction as with religion: it should present another world, and yet one to which we feel the tie.
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There is nothing so slipperily alluring as sadness we become sad in the first place by having nothing stirring to do we continue in it, because we have found a snug sofa at last.
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I will frankly confess that after passing a few weeks in the valley of the Marquesas, I formed a higher estimate of human nature than I had ever before entertained. But, alas, since then I have been one of the crew of a man-of- war, and the pent-up wickedness of five hundred men has nearly overturned all my previous theories.
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I cherish the greatest respect towards everybody's religious obligations, no matter how comical.
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Courage is the most common and vulgar of the virtues.
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Twelve o'clock! It is the natural centre, key-stone, and very heart of the day. At that hour, the sun has arrived at the top of his hill and as he seems to hang poised there a while, before coming down on the other side, it is but reasonable to suppose that he is then stopping to dine setting an eminent example to all mankind.
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There are doubts, sir, which, if man have them, it is not man that can solve them.
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Amity itself can only be maintained by reciprocal respect, and true friends are punctilious equals.
Herman Melville