Who in the rainbow can draw the line where the violet tint ends and th…

Herman Melville
214 citations
Who in the rainbow can draw the line where the violet tint ends and the orange tint begins? Distinctly we see the difference of the colors, but where exactly does the one first blendingly enter into the other? So with sanity and insanity. ✨ 1891 Billy Budd, Foretopman (first published1924), ch.21.
Life
21

More Author Quotes

The stillness of the calm is awful. His voice begins to grow strange and portentous. He feels it in him like something swallowed too big for the esophagus. It keeps up a sort of involuntary interior … ▶
I feel that the Godhead is broken up like the bread at the Supper, and that we are the pieces. Hence this infinite fraternity of feeling. ✨ Herman Melville, Lynn Horth (1993). Correspondence, p.212, … ▶
Where lies the final harbor, whence we unmoor no more? In what rapt ether sails the world, of which the weariest will never weary? Where is the foundling’s father hidden? Our souls are like those orp … ▶
There are two places in the world where men can most effectively disappear - the city of London and the South Seas. ✨ Herman Melville, Harrison Hayford, G. Thomas Tanselle (1987). Piazza Tales and Ot … ▶
Is he mad? Anyway there's something on his mind, as sure as there must be something on a deck when it cracks. ✨ Herman Melville (2016). Moby Dick (World Classics, Unabridged), p.87, Vij Books India P … ▶

Who in the rainbow can draw the line where the violet tint ends and the orange tint begins? Distinctly we see the difference of the colors, but where exactly does the one first blendingly enter into the other? So with sanity and insanity. ✨ 1891 Billy Budd, Foretopman (first published1924), ch.21.

More Author Quotes

Most Cited Authors

The Best Quotes

Most Liked Authors

Curated Author Quotes