Herman Melville

“For whatever is truly wondrous and fearful in man, never yet was put into words or books.”

“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.”

“It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation.”

“Of all the preposterous assumptions of humanity over humanity, nothing exceeds most of the criticisms made on the habits of the poor by the well-housed, well-warmed, and well-fed.”

“Our souls belong to our bodies, not our bodies to our souls.”

“We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men; and along these fibers, as sympathetic threads, our actions run as causes, and they come back as effects.”

“We may have civilized bodies and yet barbarous souls. We are blind to the real sights of this world; deaf to its voice; and dead to its death. And not till we know, that one grief outweighs ten thousand joys will we become what Christianity is striving to make us.”

“What plays the mischief with the truth is that men will insist upon the universal application of a temporary feeling or opinion.”