A whale ship was my Yale College and my Harvard.
Interpretation
Experiences outside of formal education can be just as valuable, if not more so.
In this quote, Herman Melville emphasizes that the lessons learned through real-life experiences, such as those encountered at sea on a whale ship, are as significant as traditional academic education gained at prestigious institutions like Yale or Harvard. He suggests that practical knowledge and adventure can provide invaluable insights that can shape one's understanding of the world.
In practice
In a graduation speech, one might use this quote to highlight the importance of real-world experiences alongside formal education.
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.
Every student who enters upon a scientific pursuit, especially if at a somewhat advanced period of life, will find not only that he has much to learn, but much also to unlearn.
So many organizations have a mentoring arm, but they don't really do it. Their idea of mentoring a kid is giving them general advice. But what they need to do is read with children.
Sure, it's simple, writing for kids... Just as simple as bringing them up.
I think the crucial thing in the writing career is to find what you want to do and how you fit in. What somebody else does is of no concern whatever except as an interesting variation.
I went to a bookstore to try to find a book. The bottom line is, it all comes by trial and error. It was scary and exciting at first you don't know what to expect. But once you look into your child's eyes, you forget about that.
I think that the greatest education in the world is the education which helps one to be able to do the right things at the time it has to be done.
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