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.
Interpretation
Melville argues that real-life events can have a more detrimental impact than harmful books, suggesting we should focus on preventing negative experiences rather than censoring literature.
In this quote, Herman Melville reflects on the idea that merely banning certain books due to their perceived harmfulness does not address the actual dangers posed by real events. He suggests that individuals who might be negatively influenced by literature would similarly be vulnerable to the harsh realities of life. Thus, it is imperative to address and restrict the harmful events in the world rather than resorting to censorship of written works, which are just reflections of human experiences and thoughts.
In practice
A speaker discussing the importance of confronting reality over censorship in a literary conference.
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.
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.
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.
How can we resent the life we've created for ourselves? Who's to blame, who's to credit, but us? Who can change it, any time we wish, but us?
There is something about poverty that smells like death.
To give a causal explanation of an event means to deduce a statement which describes it, using as premises of the deduction one or more universal laws, together with certain singular statements, the initial conditions ... We have thus two different kinds of statement, both of which are necessary ingredients of a complete causal explanation.
What is life without incompatible realities?
Solitude is painful when one is young, but delightful when one is more mature.
ORPHAN, n. A living person whom death has deprived of the power of filial ingratitude . . .
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