Herman Melville Quotes

443 Sourced Quotes

It may seem strange that of all men sailors should be tinkering at their last wills and testaments, but there are no people in the world more fond of that diversion.

Herman Melville
A thing may be incredible and still be true; sometimes it is incredible because it is true.

Herman Melville
I am sorry to say we whites have a sad reputation among many of the Polynesians. The natives of these islands are naturally of a kindly and hospitable temper, but there has been implanted among them an almost instinctive hate of the white man. They esteem us, with rare exceptions, such as some of the missionaries, the most barbarous, treacherous, irreligious, and devilish creatures on the earth.

Herman Melville
Twelve o'clock! It is the natural centre, key-stone, and very heart of the day. At that hour, the sun has arrived at the top of his hill; and as he seems to hang poised there a while, before coming down on the other side, it is but reasonable to suppose that he is then stopping to dine; setting an eminent example to all mankind.

Herman Melville
If you are poor, avoid wine as a costly luxury; if you are rich, shun it as a fatal indulgence. Stick to plain water.

Herman Melville
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?

Herman Melville
As a man-of-war that sails through the sea, so this earth that sails through the air. We mortals are all on board a fast-sailing,never-sinking world-frigate, of which God was the shipwright; and she is but one craft in a Milky-Way fleet, of which God is the Lord High Admiral.

Herman Melville
Students of history are horror-struck at the massacres of old; but in the shambles, men are being murdered to-day.

Herman Melville
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.

Herman Melville
Of all human events, perhaps, the publication of a first volume of verses is the most insignificant; but though a matter of no moment to the world, it is still of some concern to the author.

Herman Melville
Better be secure under one king, than exposed to violence from twenty millions of monarchs, though oneself be one of them.

Herman Melville
Books, gentlemen, are a species of men, and introduced to them you circulate in the "very best society" that this world can furnish, without the intolerable infliction of "dressing" to go into it. In your shabbiest coat and cosiest slippers you may socially chat even with the fastidious Earl of Chesterfield, and lounging under a tree enjoy the divinest intimacy with my late lord of Verulam.

Herman Melville
There is no place but the universe; no limit but the limitless; no bottom but the bottomless.

Herman Melville
In one word, Queequeg, said I, rather digressively; hell is an idea first born on an undigested apple-dumpling; and since then perpetuated through the hereditary dyspepsias nurtured by Ramadans.

Herman Melville
All deep, earnest thinking is but the intrepid effort of the soul to keep the open independence of her sea, while the wildest winds of heaven and earth conspire to cast her on the treacherous, slavish shore.

Herman Melville
All round and round does the world lie as in a sharp-shooter's ambush, to pick off the beautiful illusions of youth, by the pitiless cracking rifles of the realities of age.

Herman Melville
Soldier or sailor, the fighting man is but a fiend; and the staff and body-guard of the Devil musters many a baton.

Herman Melville
Nature is good Queen Bess; but who's responsible for the cholera?

Herman Melville
Amity itself can only be maintained by reciprocal respect, and true friends are punctilious equals.

Herman Melville
It is with fiction as with religion: it should present another world, and yet one to which we feel the tie.

Herman Melville
"Hold!" cried Media, "yonder is a curious rock. It looks black as a whale's hump in blue water, when the sun shines." "That must be the Isle of Fossils," said Mohi. "Ay, my lord, it is." "Let us land, then," said Babbalanja.

Herman Melville
In our man-of-war world, Life comes in at one gangway and Death goes overboard at the other. Under the man-of-war scourge, cursesmix with tears; and the sigh and the sob furnish the bass to the shrill octave of those who laugh to drown buried griefs of their own.

Herman Melville
Were civilization itself to be estimated by some of its results, it would seem perhaps better for what we call the barbarous part of the world to remain unchanged.

Herman Melville
The Anglo-Saxon hive have extirpated Paganism from the greater part of the North American continent; but with it they have likewise extirpated the greater portion of the Red race. Civilization is gradually sweeping from the earth the lingering vestiges of Paganism, and at the same time the shrinking forms of its unhappy worshippers.

Herman Melville
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.

Herman Melville
An utterly fearless man is a far more dangerous comrade than a coward.

Herman Melville
It is not the purpose of literature to purvey news. For news consult the Almanac de Gotha.

Herman Melville
The pulpit is ever this earth's foremost part; all the rest comes in its rear; the pulpit leads the world. From thence it is the storm of God's quick wrath is first descried, and the bow must bearthe earliest brunt. From thence it is the God of breezes fair or foul is first invokedfor favorable winds. Yes, the world's a ship on its passage out, and not a voyage complete; and the pulpit is its prow.

Herman Melville
Flight from tyranny does not of itself insure a safe asylum, far less a happy home.

Herman Melville
Be sure of this, O young ambition, all mortal greatness is but disease.

Herman Melville