Herman Melville Quotes

443 Sourced Quotes

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.

Herman Melville
Climate of Egypt in winter is the reign of spring upon earth, & summer in the air, and tranquility in the heat.

Herman Melville
Wondrous worlds on worlds! Lo, round and round me, awful spells: all glorious, vivid constellations, God's diadem ye are! To you, ye stars, man owes his subtlest raptures, thoughts unspeakable, yet full of faith.

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

Herman Melville
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
Top-heavy was the ship as a dinnerless student with all Aristotle in his head.

Herman Melville
As with ships, so with men; he who turns his back to his foe gives him an advantage.

Herman Melville
Bachelors alone can travel freely, and without any twinges of their consciences touching desertion of the fire-side.

Herman Melville
Nature is an immaculate virgin, forever standing unrobed before us.

Herman Melville
He, who, in view of its inconsistencies, says of human nature the same that, in view of its contrasts, is said of the divine nature, that it is past finding out, thereby evinces a better appreciation of it than he who, by always representing it in a clear light, leaves it to be inferred that he clearly knows all about it.

Herman Melville
Give me a condor's quill! Give me Vesuvius crater for an inkstand!

Herman Melville
War should be carried on like a monsoon; one changeless determination of every particle towards the one unalterable aim.

Herman Melville
Whenever we discover a dislike in us, toward any one, we should ever be a little suspicious of ourselves.

Herman Melville
That nameless and infinitely delicate aroma of inexpressible tenderness and attentiveness which, in every refined and honorable attachment, is contemporary with the courtship, and precedes the final banns and the rite; but which, like the bouquet of the costliest German wines, too often evaporates upon pouring love out to drink, in the disenchanting glasses of the matrimonial days and nights.

Herman Melville
Cannibalism to a certain moderate extent is practised among several of the primitive tribes in the Pacific, but it is upon the bodies of slain enemies alone; and horrible and fearful as the custom is, immeasurably as it is to be abhorred and condemned, still I assert that those who indulge in it are in other respects humane and virtuous.

Herman Melville
All the world over, the picturesque yields to the pocketesque.

Herman Melville
The Navy is the asylum for the perverse, the home of the unfortunate. Here the sons of adversity meet the children of calamity, and here the children of calamity meet the offspring of sin.

Herman Melville
Standing navies, as well as standing armies, serve to keep alive the spirit of war even in the meek heart of peace. In its very embers and smoulderings, they nourish that fatal fire, and half-pay officers, as the priests of Mars, yet guard the temple, though no god be there.

Herman Melville
Where does any novelist pick up any character? For the most part, in town, to be sure.

Herman Melville
All we discover has been with us since the sun began to roll; and much we discover, is not worth the discovering.

Herman Melville
Where is there such an one who has not a thousand times been struck with a sort of infidel idea, that whatever other worlds God may be Lord of, he is not the Lord of this; for else this world would seem to give the lie to Him; so utterly repugnant seem its ways to the instinctively known ways of Heaven.

Herman Melville
To treat of human actions is to deal wholly with second causes.

Herman Melville
If you begin the day with a laugh, you may, nevertheless, end it with a sob and a sigh.

Herman Melville
Praise when merited is not a boon: yet to a generous nature, is it pleasant to utter it.

Herman Melville
It is upon record, that three centuries ago the tongue of the Right Whale was esteemed a great delicacy in France, and commanded large prices there.

Herman Melville
How feeble is all language to describe the horrors we inflict upon these wretches, whom we mason up in the cells of our prisons, and condemn to perpetual solitude in the very heart of our population.

Herman Melville
Nearly all literature, in one sense, is made up of guide-books. Old ones tell us the ways our fathers went, through the thoroughfares and courts of old; but how few of those former places can their posterity trace, amid avenues of modern erections; to how few is the old guide-book now a clew! Every age makes its own guide-books, and the old ones are used for waste paper.

Herman Melville
I rejoice in my spine, as in the firm audacious staff of that flag which I fling half out to the world.

Herman Melville
Most statistical tables are parchingly dry in the reading; not so in the present case, however, where the reader is flooded with whole pipes, barrels, quarts, and gills of good gin and good cheer.

Herman Melville
Out of the trunk, the branches grow; out of them, the twigs. So, in productive subjects, grow the chapters.

Herman Melville