Doesn't the devil live forever; who ever heard that the devil was dead? Did you ever see any person wearing mourning for the devil?
Herman MelvilleTo be a born American citizen seems a guarantee against pauperism; and this, perhaps, springs from the virtue of a vote.
Herman MelvilleGod help thee, old man, thy thoughts have created a creature in thee; and he whose intense thinking thus makes him a Prometheus; a vulture feeds upon that heart for ever; that vulture the very creature he creates.
Herman MelvilleThe friendship of fine-hearted, generous boys, nurtured amid the romance-engendering comforts and elegancies of life, sometimes transcends the bounds of mere boyishness, and revels for a while in the empyrean of a love which only comes short, by one degree, of the sweetest sentiment entertained between the sexes.
Herman MelvilleMethinks we have hugely mistaken this matter of Life and Death. Methinks that what they call my shadow here on earth is my true substance. Methinks that in looking at things spiritual, we are too much like oysters observing the sun through the water, and thinking that thick water the thinnest of air. Me thinks my body is but the lees of my better being. In fact take my body who will, take it I say, it is not me.
Herman Melville