You cannot spill a drop of American blood without spilling the blood of the whole world…. We are not a nation, so much as a world. – Herman Melville
Old age is always wakeful as if, the longer linked with life, the less man has to do with aught that looks like death. – Herman Melville
Truth is the silliest thing under the sun. Try to get a living by the Truth and go to the Soup Societies. Heavens! Let any clergyman try to preach the Truth from its very stronghold, the pulpit, and they would ride him out of his church on his own pulpit bannister. – Herman Melville
Hope is the struggle of the soul, breaking loose from what is perishable, and attesting her eternity. – Herman Melville