Truth uncompromisingly told will always have its ragged edges.
Interpretation
Truth can often be uncomfortable and harsh, revealing imperfections and challenges.
Herman Melville's quote suggests that when truth is expressed without compromise, it can lead to unsettling or difficult outcomes. The 'ragged edges' imply that the truth, though valuable, may cause discomfort and provoke a reaction, revealing the complexities and harsh realities of life. This highlights the idea that while honesty is important, it is often not easy to face.
In practice
During a speech on transparency in leadership.
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.
Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.
To argue about justice is unavoidably to argue about virtues, about substantive moral and even spiritual questions.
God is not present in idols. Your feelings are your god. The soul is your temple.
The principles which men give to themselves end by overwhelming their noblest intentions.
The world is wider in all directions, more dangerous and bitter, more extravagant and bright. We are making hay when we should be making whoopee; we are raising tomatoes when we should be raising Cain and Lazarus.
Damn the great executives, the men of measured merriment, damn the men with careful smiles oh, damn their measured merriment.
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