Herman Melville Quotes

Fame is an accident; merit a thing absolute.

Nothing so aggravates an earnest person as a passive resistance.

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

What plays the mischief with the truth is that men will insist upon the universal application of a temporary feeling or opinion.

Those of us who always abhorred slavery as an atheistical iniquity, gladly we join in the exulting chorus of humanity over its downfall.

There's magic in the water that draws all men away form the land, that leads them over hills, down creeks and streams and rivers to the sea.

There are doubts, sir, which, if man have them, it is not man that can solve them.

The poor man wants many things; the covetous man, all.

All things that God would have us do are hard for us to do--remember that--and hence, he oftener commands us than endeavours to persuade.

There is nothing namable but that some men will, or undertake to, do it for pay.

In truth, a mature man who uses hair oil, unless medicinally, that man has probably got a quoggy spot in him somewhere.

Youth is the time when hearts are large.

To be called one thing, is oftentimes to be another.

beauty is like piety--you cannot run and read it; tranquility and constancy, with, now-a-days, an easy chair, are needed.

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

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

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

A ship is a bit of terra firma cut off from the main; it is a state in itself; and the captain is its king.

In childhood, death stirred me not; in middle age, it pursued me like a prowling bandit on the road; now, grown an old man, it boldly leads the way, and ushers me on.

I will live and die by this testimony: that I loved a good conscience; that I never invaded another man's liberty; and that I preserved my own.

All Profound things, and emotions of things are preceded and attended by Silence.

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.

Our souls are like those orphans whose unwedded mothers die in bearing them: the secret of our paternity lies in their grave, and we must there to learn it.

The entire merit of a man can never be made known; nor the sum of his demerits, if he have them. We are only known by our names; as letters sealed up, we but read each other's superscriptions.

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

He who is ready to despair in solitary peril, plucks up a heart in the presence of another. In a plurality of comrades is much countenance and consolation.

Think of it. To go down to posterity as a 'man who lived among the cannibals.'

The drama's done. Why then here does any one step forth? — Because one did survive the wreck.

The phantom-host has faded quite, Splendor and Terror gone-- Portent or promise--and gives way To pale, meek Dawn.

There is sorrow in the world, but goodness too; and goodness that is not greenness, either, no more than sorrow is.

Strange as it may seem, there is nothing in which a young and beautiful female appears to more advantage than in the art of smoking.

...The silent reminiscence of hardships departed, is sweeter than the presence of delight.

Beware the People weeping When they bare the iron hand.

The easiest way of life is the best.

You must have plenty of sea-room to tell the truth in.

A man can be honest in any sort of skin.

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

Is he mad? Anyway there's something on his mind, as sure as there must be something on a deck when it cracks.

Not one man in five cycles, who is wise, will expect appreciative recognition from his fellows, or any one of them.

He knows himself, and all that's in him, who knows adversity.

Poor people make a very poor business of it when they try to seem rich.

The shadows of things are greater than themselves; and the more exaggerated the shadow, the more unlike the substance.

And the visible world seems formed in love, the invisible spheres were formed in fright.

If there be any thing a man might well pray against, that thing is the responsive gratification of some of the devoutest prayers of his youth.

It is against the will of God that the East should be Christianized.

Youth is immortal; Tis the elderly only grow old!

Our souls belong to our bodies, not our bodies to our souls.

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

At banquets surfeit not, but fill; partake, and retire; and eat not again till you crave.

Doesn't the devil live forever; who ever heard that the devil was dead? Did you ever see any person wearing mourning for the devil?