We are only what we are; not what we would be; nor every thing we hope for. We are but a step in a scale, that reaches further above us than below.
ATTRIBUTION:
Herman Melville (1819–1891), U.S. author. Mardi (1849), ch. 175, The Writings of Herman Melville, vol. 3, eds. Harrison Hayford, Hershel Parker, and G. Thomas Tanselle (1970).
