Herman MelvilleThinkers

Action is the threads that run as causes through the thousand fibers that connect us with our fellow men.

Adversity is enjoyed in retrospect. The silent reminiscence of hardships departed, is sweeter than the presence of delight.

Adversity is a thing which to know is to know oneself and all that's in one.

America is a country of whose blood one cannot spill a drop without spilling the blood of the whole world: We are not a nation, so much as a world.

America is the israel of our time: The chosen people who bear the ark of the liberties of the world.

Art is the objectification of feeling.

The Atheist is one who does not, or will not, see in the universe a ruling principle of love. He is thus ultimately a misanthrope.

Australia is that great America on the other side of the sphere.

The Body is the possessor of our soul rather than the other way around.

The Book is a species of man, and introduced to a book, you circulate in the 'very best society' that this world can furnish, without the intolerable infliction of having to dress up. In your shabbiest coat and cosiest slippers you may socially chat even with the fastidious earl of chesterfield, and lounging under a tree enjoy the divinest intimacy with my late lord of verulam.

The Book is safer in the brain than bound for the public. It is safe from criticism. Taking a book off the brain is akin to the ticklish & dangerous business of taking an old painting off a panel-- you have to scrape off the whole brain in order to get at it with due safety-- & even then, the painting may not be worth the trouble.

The Cannibalism is still better off on judgment day than the civilized gourmand who nails geese to the ground and feasts on their bloated lives as pate de fois gras.

Charity is a wise and prudent principle, even if out of self-interest as a great safeguard to its possessor. For while man commits murder for the sake of jealousy, anger, hatred, and selfishness, no one ever murders for charity's sake.

Charity is like poetry in that it should be cultivated, if only for its being graceful.