We can only write well about our sins because it is too difficult to recall a virtuous act or even whether it was the result of good or evil motives.
So much of our lives is given over to the consideration of our imperfections that there is no time to improve our imaginary virtues. The truth is we only perfect our vices, and man is a worse creature when he dies than he was when he was born.
The Americans have always been food, sex, and spirit revivalists.
The ancients understood the regulation of power better than the regulation of liberty.
The bad poet is a toady mimicking nature.
We cannot live, suffer or die for somebody else, for suffering is too precious to be shared.
What most men desire is a virgin who is a whore.
When one realizes that his life is worthless he either commits suicide or travels.
Writing is conscience, scruple, and the farming of our ancestors.
The machine has had a pernicious effect upon virtue, pity, and love, and young men used to machines which induce inertia, and fear, are near impotent.
A strong foe is better than a weak friend.
Men are mad most of their lives; few live sane, fewer die so. The acts of people are baffling unless we realize that their wits are disordered. Man is driven to justice by his lunacy.
Man hoards himself when he has nothing to give away.
It takes a long time to understand nothing.
Herman Melville was as separated from a civilized literature as the lost Atlantis was said to have been from the great peoples of the earth.