It is a thing which every sensible American should learn from every sensible Englishman, that glare and glitter, gimcracks and gewgaws, are not indispensable to domestic solacement. Herman Melville More Quotes by Herman Melville More Quotes From Herman Melville Nothing so aggravates an earnest person as a passive resistance. Herman Melville passive-resistance earnest persons Many sensible things banished from high life find an asylum among the mob. Herman Melville asylums sensible In armies, navies, cities, or families, in nature herself, nothing more relaxes good order than misery. Herman Melville army cities order What like a bullet can undeceive! Herman Melville bullets deception The Marquesan girls dance all over; not only do their feet dance, but their arms, hands, fingers, ay, their very eyes seem to dance in their heads. Herman Melville girl dance eye However baby man may brag of his science and skill, and however much, in a flattering future, that science and skill may augment; yet for ever and for ever, to the crack of doom, the sea will insult and murder him, and pulverize the stateliest, stiffest frigate he can make; nevertheless, by the continual repetition of these very impressions, man has lost that sense of the full awfulness of the sea which aboriginally belongs to it. Herman Melville sea baby men Madman! Look through my eyes if thou hast none of thine own. Herman Melville madmen eye looks That immaculate manliness we feel within ourselves, so far within us, that it remains intact though all the outer character seem gone; bleeds with keenest anguish at the undraped spectacle of a valor-ruined man. Herman Melville gone character men 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. Herman Melville giving book lying Give not thyself up, then, to fire, lest it invert thee, deaden thee, as for the time it did me. There is a wisdom that is woe; but there is a woe that is madness. Herman Melville woe fire giving The urbane activity with which a man receives money is really marvelous, considering that we so earnestly believe money to be the root of all earthly ills, and that on no account can a monied man enter heaven. Ah! how cheerfully we consign ourselves to perdition! Herman Melville roots men believe You cannot hide the soul. Herman Melville soul The stillness of the calm is awful. His voice begins to grow strange and portentous. He feels it in him like something swallowed too big for the esophagus. It keeps up a sort of involuntary interior humming in him, like a live beetle. His cranium is a dome full of reverberations. The hollows of his very bones are as whispering galleries. He is afraid to speak loud, lest he be stunned; like the man in the bass drum. Herman Melville whispering voice men The easiest way of life is the best. Herman Melville life-is way I am past scorching; not easily can’st thou scorch a scar. Herman Melville scorching scar past Immortality is but ubiquity in time. Herman Melville ubiquity immortality Give me a condor's quill! Give me Vesuvius crater for an inkstand! Herman Melville writing giving art Lo! ye believers in gods all goodness, and in man all ill, lo you! see the omniscient gods oblivious of suffering man; and man, though idiotic, and knowing not what he does, yet full of the sweet things of love and gratitude. Herman Melville gratitude sweet men No town-bred dandy will compare with a country-bred one- I mean a downright bumpkin dandy- a fellow that, in the dog-days of summer, will mow his two acres in buckskin gloves for fear of tanning his hands. Herman Melville dog summer country For though consciences are as unlike as foreheads, every intelligence, not including the Scriptural devils who "believe and tremble" has one. Herman Melville foreheads devil believe
