Herman Melville
Herman Melville
Herman Melvillewas an American novelist, short story writer, and poet of the American Renaissance period best known for Typee, a romantic account of his experiences in Polynesian life, and his whaling novel Moby-Dick. His work was almost forgotten during his last thirty years. His writing draws on his experience at sea as a common sailor, exploration of literature and philosophy, and engagement in the contradictions of American society in a period of rapid change. He developed a complex, baroque style:...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth1 August 1819
CityNew York City, NY
CountryUnited States of America
Methinks that what they call my shadow here on earth is my true substance. Methinks that in looking at things spiritual, we are too much like oysters observing the sun through the water, and thinking that thick water the thinnest of air.
So philosophers so throughly comprehend us as horses.
Grub, ho! now cried the landlord, flinging open a door, and in we went to breakfast.
No utter surprise can come to him Who reaches Shakespeare's core; That which we seek and shun is there - Man's final lore
Meditation and water are wedded for ever.
Yet habit - strange thing! what cannot habit accomplish?
A noble craft, but somehow a most melancholy! All noble things are touched with that.
A good laugh is a mighty good thing, a rather too scarce a good thing.
Do not presume, well-housed, well-warmed, and well-fed, to criticize the poor
Genius is full of trash.
There is a touch of divinity even in brutes, and a special halo about a horse, that should forever exempt him from indignities.
Let us speak, though we show all our faults and weaknesses, - for it is a sign of strength to be weak, to know it, and out with it - not in a set way and ostentatiously, though, but incidentally and without premeditation.
If some books are deemed most baneful and their sale forbid, how then with deadlier facts, not dreams of doting men? Those whom books will hurt will not be proof against events. Events, not books should be forbid.
Were civilization itself to be estimated by some of its results, it would seem perhaps better for what we call the barbarous part of the world to remain unchanged.