Herman melville quotes

Nature is nobody's ally.

For as this appalling ocean surrounds the verdant land, so in the soul of man there lies one insular Tahiti, full of peace and joy, but encompassed by all the horrors of the half known life.

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.

As for me, I am tormented with an everlasting itch for things remote. I love to sail forbidden seas, and land on barbarous coasts.

for there is no folly of the beast of the earth which is not infinitely outdone by the madness of men

Real strength never impairs beauty or harmony, but it often bestows it, and in everything imposingly beautiful, strength has much to do with the magic.

Failure is the test of greatness.

There is something wrong about the man who wants help. There is somewhere a deep defect, a want, in brief, a need, a crying need, somewhere about that man.

A smile is the chosen vehicle of all ambiguities.

I know not all that may be coming, but be it what it will, I'll go to it laughing.

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

Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off - then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can.

contempt is as frequently produced at first sight as love.

We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men.

Art is the objectification of feeling.

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

I cherish the greatest respect towards everybody's religious obligations, no matter how comical.

Take almost any path you please, and ten to one it carries you down in a dale, and leaves you there by a pool in the stream. There is magic in it. Let the most absent-minded of men be plunged in his deepest reveries--stand that man on his legs, set his feet a-going, and he will infallibly lead you to water, if water there be in all that region. Should you ever be athirst in the great American desert, try this experiment, if your caravan happen to be supplied with a metaphysical professor. Yes, as every one knows, meditation and water are wedded for ever.

We may have civilized bodies and yet barbarous souls. We are blind to the real sights of this world; deaf to its voice; and dead to its death. And not till we know, that one grief outweighs ten thousand joys will we become what Christianity is striving to make us.

A whale ship was my Yale College and my Harvard.

They talk of the dignity of work. The dignity is in leisure.

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

There is one knows not what sweet mystery about this sea, whose gently awful stirrings seem to speak of some hidden soul beneath.

Truth is ever incoherent, and when the big hearts strike together, the concussion is a little stunning.

Truth uncompromisingly told will always have its ragged edges.

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

The eyes are the gateway to the soul.

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.

Who in the rainbow can draw the line where the violet tint ends and the orange tint begins? Distinctly we see the difference of the colors, but where exactly does the one first blendingly enter into the other? So with sanity and insanity.

Friendship at first sight, like love at first sight, is said to be the only truth.

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

Immortality is but ubiquity in time.

In this world of lies, Truth is forced to fly like a scared white doe in the woodlands; and only by cunning glimpses will she reveal herself, as in Shakespeare and other masters of the great Art of Telling the Truth, even though it be covertly, and by snatches.

When among wild beasts, if they menace you, be a wild beast.

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

The path to my fixed purpose is laid with iron rails whereon my soul is grooved to run

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 only true infidelity is for a live man to vote himself dead.

Youth is the time when hearts are large.

In a multitude of acquaintances is less security, than in one faithful friend.

There is no figure more common in scripture, and none more beautiful, than that by which Christ is likened unto light. Incomprehensible in its nature, itself the first visible, and that by which all things are seen, light represents to us Christ. Whose generation none can declare, but Who must shine upon us ere we can know aught aright, whether of things Divine or human.

It is hard to be finite upon an infinite subject, and all subjects are infinite.

Life’s a voyage that’s homeward bound.

True Work is the necessity of poor humanity's earthly condition. The dignity is in leisure. Besides, 99 hundredths of all the work done in the world is either foolish and unnecessary, or harmful and wicked.

The sweetest joys of life grow in the very jaws of its perils.

To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme.

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.

Is there some principal of nature which states that we never know the quality of what we have until it is gone?

No philosophers so thoroughly comprehend us as dogs and horses.

Thou hast evoked in me profounder spells than the evoking one, thou face! For me, thou hast uncovered one infinite, dumb, beseeching countenance of mystery, underlying all the surfaces of visible time and space.

Toil is man's allotment; toil of brain, or toil of hands, or a grief that's more than either, the grief and sin of idleness.

What is an atheist, but one who does not, or will not, see in the universe a ruling principle of love; and what a misanthrope, but one who does not, or will not, see in man a ruling principle of kindness?

As in digging for precious metals in the mines, much earthy rubbish has first to be troublesomely handled and thrown out; so, in digging in one's soul for the fine gold of genius, much dullness and common-place is first brought to light.

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?

We may have civilized bodies and yet barbarous souls.

Old age is always wakeful; as if, the longer linked with life, the less man has to do with aught that looks like death.

Let us speak, though we show all our faults and weaknesses, - for it is a sign of strength to be weak, to know it, and out with it - not in a set way and ostentatiously, though, but incidentally and without premeditation.

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.

Fame is an accident; merit a thing absolute.

Beneath those stars is a universe of gliding monsters.

Whatever my fate, I'll go to it laughing.

Failure is the true test of greatness

We die, because we live.

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.

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

Of all the preposterous assumptions of humanity over humanity, nothing exceeds most of the criticisms made on the habits of the poor by the well-housed, well- warmed, and well-fed.

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

The Past is the textbook of tyrants; the Future is the Bible of the Free.

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.

It is better to fail in originality, than to succeed in imitation. He who has never failed somewhere, that man can not be great. Failure is the true test of greatness.

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.

The Past is dead, and has no resurrection; but the Future is endowed with such a life, that it lives to us even in anticipation. The Past is, in many things, the foe of mankind; the Future is, in all things, our friend. In the Past is no hope; The Future is both hope and fruition. The Past is the text-book of tyrants; the Future is the Bible of the Free. Those who are solely governed by the Past stand like Lot's wife, crystallized in the act of looking backward, and forever incapable of looking before.

If you can get nothing better out of the world, get a good dinner out of it, at least.

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.

Think not, is my eleventh commandment; and sleep when you can, is my twelfth.

Time is made up of various ages; and each thinks its own a novelty.

Ignorance is the parent of fear.

You know nothing till you know all; which is the reason we never know any thing.

At my years, and with my disposition, or rather, constitution, one gets to care less and less for everything except downright goodfeeling. Life is so short, and so ridiculous and irrational (from a certain point of view) that one knows not what to make of it, unless--well, finish the sentence for yourself.

There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness is the true method.

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

Truth is in things, and not in words.

Youth is immortal; Tis the elderly only grow old!

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

My body is but the lees of my better being.

The most mighty of nature's laws is this, that out of Death she brings Life.

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.

Meditation and water are wedded for ever.

It is not down in any map; true places never are.

Many sensible things banished from high life find an asylum among the mob.

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.

All experience teaches that, whenever there is a great national establishment, employing large numbers of officials, the public must be reconciled to support many incompetent men; for such is the favoritism and nepotism always prevailing in the purlieus of these establishments, that some incompetent persons are always admitted, to the exclusion of many of the worthy.

I love to sail forbidden seas, and land on barbarous coasts.

I am, as I am; whether hideous, or handsome, depends upon who is made judge.

Faith, like a jackal, feeds among the tombs, and even from these dead doubts she gathers her most vital hope.

Why did the old Persians hold the sea holy? Why did the Greeks give it a separate deity, and own brother Jove? Surely all this is not without meaning. And still deeper the meaning of that story of Narcissus, who because he could not grasp the tormenting mild image he saw in the fountain, plunged into it and was drowned. But that same image, we ourselves see in all rivers and oceans. It is the image of the ungraspable phantom of life; and this is the key to it all.

Better to sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunken Christian.

Ladies are like creeds; if you cannot speak well of them, say nothing.

Only the man who says no is free

It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation.

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

Man is a money-making animal, which propensity too often interferes with his benevolence.

I have no objection to any person's religion, be it what it may, so long as that person does not kill or insult any other person, because that other person don't believe it also. But when a man's religion becomes really frantic; when it is a positive torment to him; and, in fine, makes this earth of ours an uncomfortable inn to lodge in; then I think it high time to take that individual aside and argue the point with him.

All Profound things, and emotions of things are preceded and attended by Silence... Silence is the general consecration of the universe. Silence is the invisible laying on of the Divine Pontiff's hands upon the world. Silence is at once the most harmless and the most awful thing in all nature. It speaks of the Reserved Forces of Fate. Silence is the only Voice of our God.

Silence is the only Voice of our God.

One of the coolest and wisest hours a man has, is just after he awakes in the morning.

Better be an old maid, a woman with herself as a husband, than the wife of a fool; and Solomon more than hints that all men are fools; and every wise man knows himself to be one.

Stay true to the dreams of thy youth.

He who has never failed somewhere, that man can not be great.

Hope is the struggle of the soul, breaking loose from what is perishable, and attesting her eternity.

The sun hides not the ocean, which is the dark side of this earth, and which is two thirds of this earth. So, therefore, that mortal man who hath more of joy than sorrow in him, that mortal man cannot be true-- not true, or undeveloped. With books the same. The truest of all men was the Man of Sorrows, and the truest of all books is Solomon’s, and Ecclesiastes is the fine hammered steel of woe.

To a sensitive being, pity is not seldom pain.

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?

A man of true science... thinks, that by mouthing hard words, he proves that he understands hard things.

A book in a man's brain is better off than a book bound in calf - at any rate it is safer from criticism.

There is nothing so slipperily alluring as sadness; we become sad in the first place by having nothing stirring to do; we continue in it, because we have found a snug sofa at last.

There is no quality in this world that is not what it is merely by contrast. Nothing exists in itself.

Mystery is in the morning, and mystery in the night, and the beauty of mystery is everywhere; but still the plain truth remains, that mouth and purse must be filled.

Do not presume, well-housed, well-warmed, and well-fed, to criticize the poor

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

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

Ignorance is the father of all fear.

True places are not found on maps.

There is a savor of life and immortality in substantial fare. Like balloons, we are nothing till filled.

We cannot live for ourselves alone.