Dollars damn me; and the malicious Devil is forever grinning in upon me, holding the door ajar. ... What I feel most moved to write, that is banned - it will not pay. Yet, altogether, write the other way I cannot. So the product is a final hash, and all my books are botches.
Interpretation
The quote reflects the internal struggle between artistic integrity and financial necessity.
In this quote from Herman Melville, the author expresses a profound conflict between his creative impulses and the demands of commercial success. He feels compelled to conform to societal expectations for profit, which ultimately undermines the authenticity of his work. This tension reveals the deeper philosophical dilemma faced by artists: the pursuit of genuine expression versus the corrupting influence of money and marketability.
In practice
In a presentation about the challenges of artistic expression in modern society, this quote could be used to highlight the conflict artists face.
A good laugh is a mighty good thing, and rather too scarce a good thing; the more's the pity. So, if any one man, in his own proper person, afford stuff for a good joke to anybody, let him not be backward, but let him cheerfully allow himself to spend and be spent in that way. And the man that has anything bountifully laughable about him, be sure there is more in that man than you perhaps think for.
The Marquesan girls dance all over; not only do their feet dance, but their arms, hands, fingers, ay, their very eyes seem to dance in their heads.
Dream tonight of peacock tails, Diamond fields and spouter whales. Ills are many, blessing few, But dreams tonight will shelter you.
Why did the old Persians hold the sea holy? Why did the Greeks give it a separate deity, and own brother Jove? Surely all this is not without meaning. And still deeper the meaning of that story of Narcissus, who because he could not grasp the tormenting mild image he saw in the fountain, plunged into it and was drowned. But that same image, we ourselves see in all rivers and oceans. It is the image of the ungraspable phantom of life; and this is the key to it all.
If some books are deemed most baneful and their sale forbid, how then with deadlier facts, not dreams of doting men? Those whom books will hurt will not be proof against events. Events, not books should be forbid.
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.
There is no greater disaster in the spiritual life than to be immersed in unreality, for life is maintained and nourished in us by our vital relation with realities outside and above us.
The bee is more honored than other animals, not because she labors, but because she labors for others.
Christianity even when watered down is hot enough to boil all modern society to rags.
Irony and pity are two good counselors: one, in smiling, makes life pleasurable; the other, who cries, makes it sacred.
Every day, I absorb countless data bits through emails, phone calls, and articles; process the data; and transmit back new bits through more emails, phone calls, and articles. I don't really know where I fit into the great scheme of things and how my bits of data connect with the bits produced by billions of other humans and computers.
Religion is about turning untested belief into unshakable truth through the power of institutions and the passage of time.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.