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
The pleasure of leaving home, care-free, with no concern but to enjoy, has also as a pendant the pleasure of coming back to the old hearthstone, the home to which, however traveled, the heart still fondly turns, ignoring the burden of its anxieties and cares.
Only the man who says no is free
Nothing can lift the heart of man like manhood in a fellow man.
Time is made up of various ages; and each thinks its own a novelty.
There is no life in thee, now, except that rocking life imparted by a gently rolling ship; by her, borrowed from the sea; by the sea, from the inscrutable tides of God.
O Nature, and O soul of man! how far beyond all utterance are your linked analogies; not the smallest atom stirs or lives on matter, but has its cunning duplicate in mind.
I rejoice in my spine, as in the firm audacious staff of that flag which I fling half out to the world.
What like a bullet can undeceive!
People seem to have a great love for names. For to know a great many names seems to look like knowing a good many things.
What plays the mischief with the truth is that men will insist upon the universal application of a temporary feeling or opinion.
In placid hours well-pleased we dream Of many a brave unbodied scheme. But form to lend, pulsed life create, What unlike things must meet and mate: A flame to melt--a wind to freeze; Sad patience--joyous energies; Humility--yet pride and scorn; Instinct and study; love and hate; Audacity--reverence. These must mate, And fuse with Jacob's mystic heart, To wrestle with the angel--Art.
Let us waive that agitated national topic, as to whether such multitudes of foreign poor should be landed on our American shores;let us waive it, with the one only thought, that if they can get here, they have God's right to come.
That hour in the life of a man when first the help of humanity fails him, and he learns that in his obscurity and indigence humanity holds him a dog and no man: that hour is a hard one, but not the hardest. There is still another hour which follows, when he learns that in his infinite comparative minuteness and abjectness, the gods do likewise despise him, and own him not of their clan.
God is liberal of color; so should man be.