Quote

In their precise tracings-out and subtle causations, the strongest and fieriest emotions of life defy all analytical insight.

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
Emotion
Tracing
Life
Analytical
Defy
Precise
Strongest
Subtle
Insight
Emotions
Causation

More quotes by Herman Melville

Image
O Death, the Consecrator! Nothing so sanctifies a name As to be written--Dead. Nothing so wins a life from blame, So covers it from wrath and shame, As doth the burial-bed.
Herman Melville
Image
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.
Herman Melville
Image
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.
Herman Melville
Image
All things that God would have us do are hard for us to do--remember that--and hence, he oftener commands us than endeavours to persuade.
Herman Melville
Image
Let America first praise mediocrity even, in her children, before she praises... the best excellence in the children of any other land.
Herman Melville
Image
Immortality is but ubiquity in time.
Herman Melville
Image
The man that has anything bountifully laughable about him, be sure there is more in that man than you perhaps think for.
Herman Melville
Image
A thing may be incredible and still be true sometimes it is incredible because it is true.
Herman Melville
Image
Meditation and water are wedded for ever.
Herman Melville
Image
Evil is the chronic malady of the universe, and checked in one place, breaks forth in another.
Herman Melville
Image
He, who, in view of its inconsistencies, says of human nature the same that, in view of its contrasts, is said of the divine nature, that it is past finding out, thereby evinces a better appreciation of it than he who, by always representing it in a clear light, leaves it to be inferred that he clearly knows all about it.
Herman Melville
Image
Ah, happiness courts the light so we deem the world is gay. But misery hides aloof so we deem that misery there is none.
Herman Melville
Image
Heaven have mercy on us all - Presbyterians and Pagans alike - for we are all somehow dreadfully cracked about the head, and sadly need mending.
Herman Melville
Image
What like a bullet can undeceive!
Herman Melville
Image
For whatever is truly wondrous and fearful in man, never yet was put into words or books.
Herman Melville
Image
The worst of our evils we blindly inflict upon ourselves our officers cannot remove them, even if they would.
Herman Melville
Image
Courage is the most common and vulgar of the virtues.
Herman Melville
Image
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.
Herman Melville
Image
Beneath those stars is a universe of gliding monsters.
Herman Melville
Image
The symmetry of form attainable in pure fiction can not so readily be achieved in a narration essentially having less to do with fable than with fact. Truth uncompromisingly told will always have its ragged edges.
Herman Melville