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Herman Melville Quotes about Creativity

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As in digging for precious metals in the mines, much earthy rubbish has first to be troublesomely handled and thrown out; so, in digging in one's soul for the fine gold of genius, much dullness and common-place is first

As in digging for precious metals in the mines, much earthy rubbish has first to be troublesomely handled and thrown out; so, in digging in one's soul for the fine gold of genius, much dullness and common-place is first brought to light.

Herman Melville
Creativity, Light, Soul
Herman Melville (2016). “Pierre; or The Ambiguities”, p.327, Herman Melville

That author who draws a character, even though to common view incongruous in its parts, as the flying-squirrel, and, at differentperiods, as much at variance with itself as the caterpillar is with the butterfly into which it changes, may yet, in so doing, be not false but faithful to facts.

Herman Melville
Butterfly, Character, Creativity
Herman Melville (1988). “The Confidence-man: His Masquerade”, p.70, Northwestern University Press

It is well known, that the best productions of the best human intellects, are generally regarded by those intellects as mere immature freshman exercises, wholly worthless in themselves, except as initiatives for entering the great University of God after death.

Herman Melville
Creativity, Exercise, Immature
Herman Melville (2017). “Pierre: Or, the Ambiguities”, p.179, W. W. Norton & Company

I don't know but a book in a man's brain is better off than a book bound in calf--at any rate it is safer from criticism. And taking a book off the brain, is akin to the ticklish & dangerous business of taking an old painting off a panel--you have to scrape off the whole brain in order to get at it with due safety--& even then, the painting may not be worth the trouble.

Herman Melville
Book, Creativity, Men

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