Herman Melville Quotes
Top 100 wise famous quotes and sayings by Herman Melville
Herman Melville Famous Quotes & Sayings
Discover top inspirational quotes from Herman Melville on Wise Famous Quotes.
In some things, we Americans leave to other countries the carrying out of the principle that stands at the head of our Declaration of Independence.
So have I seen Passion and Vanity stamping the living magnanimous earth, but the earth did not alter her tides and her seasons for that.
The grand points in human nature are the same to-day they were a thousand years ago. The only variability in them is in expression, not in feature.
An intense copper calm, like a universal yellow lotus, was more and more unfolding its noiseless measureless leaves upon the sea.
There are times when even the most potent governor must wink at transgression, in order to preserve the laws inviolate for the future.
Hope is the struggle of the soul, breaking loose from what is perishable, and attesting her eternity.
If you are poor, avoid wine as a costly luxury; if you are rich, shun it as a fatal indulgence. Stick to plain water.
Ah, happiness courts the light so we deem the world is gay. But misery hides aloof so we deem that misery there is none.
Have an eye to the molasses tierce, Mr. Stubb; it was a little leaky, I thought. If ye touch at the islands, Mr. Flask, beware of fornication.
Surely a gentle sister is the second best gift to a man; and it is first in point of occurrence; for the wife comes after.
I am a man who, from his youth upwards, has been filled with a profound conviction that the easiest way of life is the best.
From beneath his slouched hat Ahab dropped a tear into the sea; nor did all the Pacific contain such wealth as that one wee drop.
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.
Indolence is heaven 's ally here, And energy the child of hell : The Good Man pouring from his pitcher clear But brims the poisoned well.
A book in a man's brain is better off than a book bound in calf - at any rate it is safer from criticism.
In armies, navies, cities, or families, in nature herself, nothing more relaxes good order than misery.
Nobody is so heartily despised as a pusillanimous, lazy, good-for-nothing, land-lubber; a sailor has no bowels of compassion for him.
...if you gobern de shark in you, why den you be angel; for all angel is not'ing more dan de shark well goberned.
We are not a nation, so much as a world; for unless we claim all the world for our sire, like Melchisedec, we are without father or mother.
Wherefore, for all these things, we account the whale immortal in his species, however perishable in his individuality. He
Is he mad? Anyway there's something on his mind, as sure as there must be something on a deck when it cracks.
And tell him to paint me a sign, with-"no suicides permitted here, and no smoking in the parlor;" might as well kill both birds at once.
When the passage "All men are born free and equal," when that passage was being written were not some of the signers legalised owners of slaves?
But no more of this blubbering now, we are going a-whaling, and there is plenty of that yet to come.
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.
There is a touch of divinity even in brutes, and a special halo about a horse, that should forever exempt him from indignities.
I felt a melting in me. No more my splintered heart and maddened hand were turned against the wolfish world.
There is that in thee, poor lad, which I feel too curing to my malady. Like cures like; and for this hunt, my malady becomes my most desired health.
Bachelors alone can travel freely, and without any twinges of their consciences touching desertion of the fire-side.
To insure the greatest efficiency in the dart, the harpooners of this world must start to their feet from out of idleness, and not from out of toil.
In their precise tracings-out and subtle causations, the strongest and fieriest emotions of life defy all analytical insight.
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.
The worst of our evils we blindly inflict upon ourselves; our officers cannot remove them, even if they would.
Yet, after all, insensible as he is to a thousand wants, and removed from harassing cares, my not the savage be the happier man..?
There are two places in the world where men can most effectively disappear - the city of London and the South Seas.
Ah! how they still strove through that infinite blueness to seek out the thing that might destroy them! Why
There is a savor of life and immortality in substantial fare. Like balloons, we are nothing till filled.
For though consciences are as unlike as foreheads, every intelligence, not including the Scriptural devils who "believe and tremble" has one.
Implacable I, the implacable Sea; Implacable most when most I smile serene- Pleased, not appeased, by myriad wrecks in me.
For there is no folly of the beast of the earth which is not infinitely outdone by the madness of men
And yet a child's utter innocence is but its blank ignorance, and the innocence more or less wanes as intelligence waxes.
I could ... see in Emerson ... that had he lived in those days when the world was made, he might have offered some valuable suggestions.
Don't whale it too much a' Lord's days, men; but don't miss a fair chance either, that's rejecting Heaven's good gifts.