Let America first praise mediocrity even, in her children, before she praises… the best excellence in the children of any other land.
Meaning of the quote
This quote suggests that America should be more accepting and supportive of its own citizens, even if they are not the best or most talented in the world. It implies that America should focus on praising and encouraging its own children, rather than comparing them to the most talented children in other countries. The core idea is that America should value and appreciate its own people, even if they are not the absolute best.
About Herman Melville
Herman Melville was an American author best known for his classic novel Moby-Dick. He had a varied career, working as a sailor, writer, and customs inspector. Despite initial lack of success, Melville’s works have since been recognized as some of the greatest in American literature.
More quotes from Herman Melville
There are hardly five critics in America; and several of them are asleep.
American writer and poet (1819-1891)
Toil is man’s allotment; toil of brain, or toil of hands, or a grief that’s more than either, the grief and sin of idleness.
American writer and poet (1819-1891)
There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes his whole universe for a vast practical joke.
American writer and poet (1819-1891)
It is impossible to talk or to write without apparently throwing oneself helplessly open.
American writer and poet (1819-1891)
There is something wrong about the man who wants help. There is somewhere a deep defect, a want, in brief, a need, a crying need, somewhere about that man.
American writer and poet (1819-1891)
A whale ship was my Yale College and my Harvard.
American writer and poet (1819-1891)
To be hated cordially, is only a left-handed compliment.
American writer and poet (1819-1891)
It is not down in any map; true places never are.
American writer and poet (1819-1891)
I am, as I am; whether hideous, or handsome, depends upon who is made judge.
American writer and poet (1819-1891)
Better sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunken Christian.
American writer and poet (1819-1891)
There is one knows not what sweet mystery about this sea, whose gently awful stirrings seem to speak of some hidden soul beneath.
American writer and poet (1819-1891)
A man thinks that by mouthing hard words he understands hard things.
American writer and poet (1819-1891)
Is there some principal of nature which states that we never know the quality of what we have until it is gone?
American writer and poet (1819-1891)
To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme. No great and enduring volume can ever be written on the flea, though many there be that have tried it.
American writer and poet (1819-1891)
To know how to grow old is the master work of wisdom, and one of the most difficult chapters in the great art of living.
American writer and poet (1819-1891)
There is no quality in this world that is not what it is merely by contrast. Nothing exists in itself.
American writer and poet (1819-1891)
Know, thou, that the lines that live are turned out of a furrowed brow.
American writer and poet (1819-1891)
It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation.
American writer and poet (1819-1891)
Hope is the struggle of the soul, breaking loose from what is perishable, and attesting her eternity.
American writer and poet (1819-1891)
There is a touch of divinity even in brutes, and a special halo about a horse, that should forever exempt him from indignities.
American writer and poet (1819-1891)
Truth uncompromisingly told will always have its ragged edges.
American writer and poet (1819-1891)
The march of conquest through wild provinces, may be the march of Mind; but not the march of Love.
American writer and poet (1819-1891)
We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men.
American writer and poet (1819-1891)
Faith, like a jackal, feeds among the tombs, and even from these dead doubts she gathers her most vital hope.
American writer and poet (1819-1891)
To be called one thing, is oftentimes to be another.
American writer and poet (1819-1891)
There is nothing namable but that some men will, or undertake to, do it for pay.
American writer and poet (1819-1891)
He who has never failed somewhere, that man can not be great.
American writer and poet (1819-1891)
Art is the objectification of feeling.
American writer and poet (1819-1891)
Whatever fortune brings, don’t be afraid of doing things.
American writer and poet (1819-1891)
There is sorrow in the world, but goodness too; and goodness that is not greenness, either, no more than sorrow is.
American writer and poet (1819-1891)
Old age is always wakeful; as if, the longer linked with life, the less man has to do with aught that looks like death.
American writer and poet (1819-1891)
He piled upon the whale’s white hump the sum of all the general rage and hate felt by his whole race from Adam down; and then, as if his chest had been a mortar, he burst his hot heart’s shell upon it.
American writer and poet (1819-1891)
Some dying men are the most tyrannical; and certainly, since they will shortly trouble us so little for evermore, the poor fellows ought to be indulged.
American writer and poet (1819-1891)
To the last, I grapple with thee; From Hell’s heart, I stab at thee; For hate’s sake, I spit my last breath at thee.
American writer and poet (1819-1891)
A smile is the chosen vehicle of all ambiguities.
American writer and poet (1819-1891)
Better to sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunken Christian.
American writer and poet (1819-1891)
Heaven have mercy on us all – Presbyterians and Pagans alike – for we are all somehow dreadfully cracked about the head, and sadly need mending.
American writer and poet (1819-1891)
Let us speak, though we show all our faults and weaknesses, – for it is a sign of strength to be weak, to know it, and out with it – not in a set way and ostentatiously, though, but incidentally and without premeditation.
American writer and poet (1819-1891)
Friendship at first sight, like love at first sight, is said to be the only truth.
American writer and poet (1819-1891)
Yet habit – strange thing! what cannot habit accomplish?
American writer and poet (1819-1891)
There is all of the difference in the world between paying and being paid.
American writer and poet (1819-1891)
They talk of the dignity of work. The dignity is in leisure.
American writer and poet (1819-1891)
Truth is the silliest thing under the sun. Try to get a living by the Truth and go to the Soup Societies. Heavens! Let any clergyman try to preach the Truth from its very stronghold, the pulpit, and they would ride him out of his church on his own pulpit bannister.
American writer and poet (1819-1891)
Truth is in things, and not in words.
American writer and poet (1819-1891)
In this world, shipmates, sin that pays its way can travel freely, and without passport; whereas Virtue, if a pauper, is stopped at all frontiers.
American writer and poet (1819-1891)
There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness is the true method.
American writer and poet (1819-1891)
There are some persons in this world, who, unable to give better proof of being wise, take a strange delight in showing what they think they have sagaciously read in mankind by uncharitable suspicions of them.
American writer and poet (1819-1891)
At sea a fellow comes out. Salt water is like wine, in that respect.
American writer and poet (1819-1891)
There are times when even the most potent governor must wink at transgression, in order to preserve the laws inviolate for the future.
American writer and poet (1819-1891)
Let America first praise mediocrity even, in her children, before she praises… the best excellence in the children of any other land.
American writer and poet (1819-1891)
Where do murderers go, man! Who’s to doom, when the judge himself is dragged to the bar?
American writer and poet (1819-1891)
There is no dignity in wickedness, whether in purple or rags; and hell is a democracy of devils, where all are equals.
American writer and poet (1819-1891)