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.
HERMAN MELVILLEOld age is always wakeful; as if, the longer linked with life, the less man has to do with aught that looks like death.
More Herman Melville Quotes
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We cannot live for ourselves alone.
HERMAN MELVILLE -
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.
HERMAN MELVILLE -
Meditation and water are wedded for ever.
HERMAN MELVILLE -
When among wild beasts, if they menace you, be a wild beast.
HERMAN MELVILLE -
A smile is the chosen vehicle of all ambiguities.
HERMAN MELVILLE -
No philosophers so thoroughly comprehend us as dogs and horses.
HERMAN MELVILLE -
Friendship at first sight, like love at first sight, is said to be the only truth.
HERMAN MELVILLE -
You know nothing till you know all; which is the reason we never know any thing.
HERMAN MELVILLE -
One of the coolest and wisest hours a man has, is just after he awakes in the morning.
HERMAN MELVILLE -
A thing may be incredible and still be true; sometimes it is incredible because it is true.
HERMAN MELVILLE -
Ladies are like creeds; if you cannot speak well of them, say nothing.
HERMAN MELVILLE -
Benevolent desires, after passing a certain point, can not undertake their own fulfillment without incurring the risk of evils beyond those sought to be remedied.
HERMAN MELVILLE -
A man of true science… thinks, that by mouthing hard words, he proves that he understands hard things.
HERMAN MELVILLE -
Yet habit – strange thing! what cannot habit accomplish?
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