Quote

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

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
Certain
Reform
Undertake
Without
Passing
Benevolent
Beyond
Conservatism
Risk
Evils
Politics
Sought
Point
Passings
Evil
Fulfillment
Remedied
Desire
Desires
Incurring

More quotes by Herman Melville

Image
The idea of Jehovah was born here... Out of the rude elements of the insignificant thoughts thoughts that are in all men, they reared the transcendent conception of a God.
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
Where lies the final harbor, whence we unmoor no more? In what rapt ether sails the world, of which the weariest will never weary? Where is the foundling’s father hidden? Our souls are like those orphans whose unwedded mothers die in bearing them: the secret of our paternity lies in their grave, and we must there to learn it.
Herman Melville
Image
There are hardly five critics in America and several of them are asleep.
Herman Melville
Image
To be called one thing, is oftentimes to be another.
Herman Melville
Image
Nature is nobody's ally.
Herman Melville
Image
The phantom-host has faded quite, Splendor and Terror gone-- Portent or promise--and gives way To pale, meek Dawn.
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
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
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.
Herman Melville
Image
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.
Herman Melville
Image
Civilization has not ever been the brother of equality. Freedom was born among the wild eyries in the mountains and barbarous tribes have sheltered under her wings, when the enlightened people of the plain have nestled under different pinions.
Herman Melville
Image
Talk not to me of blasphemy, man I'd strike the sun if it insulted me.
Herman Melville
Image
The sweetest joys of life grow in the very jaws of its perils.
Herman Melville
Image
When a companion's heart of itself overflows, the best one can do is to do nothing.
Herman Melville
Image
People think that if a man has undergone any hardship, he should have a reward but for my part, if I have done the hardest possible day's work, and then come to sit down in a corner and eat my supper comfortably -why, then I don't think I deserve any reward for my hard day's work -for am I not now at peace? Is not my supper good?
Herman Melville
Image
I have written a wicked book, and feel spotless as the lamb.
Herman Melville
Image
Charity, like poetry, should be cultivated, if only for its being graceful.
Herman Melville
Image
A smile is the chosen vehicle of all ambiguities.
Herman Melville