To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme.
HERMAN MELVILLEThe poor man wants many things; the covetous man, all.
More Herman Melville Quotes
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Beneath those stars is a universe of gliding monsters.
HERMAN MELVILLE -
There is no quality in this world that is not what it is merely by contrast. Nothing exists in itself.
HERMAN MELVILLE -
The Past is the textbook of tyrants; the Future 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.
HERMAN MELVILLE -
I cherish the greatest respect towards everybody’s religious obligations, no matter how comical.
HERMAN MELVILLE -
Stay true to the dreams of thy youth.
HERMAN MELVILLE -
My body is but the lees of my better being.
HERMAN MELVILLE -
I love to sail forbidden seas, and land on barbarous coasts.
HERMAN MELVILLE -
Faith, like a jackal, feeds among the tombs, and even from these dead doubts she gathers her most vital hope.
HERMAN MELVILLE -
Heaven have mercy on us all – Presbyterians and Pagans alike – for we are all somehow dreadfully cracked about the head, and sadly need mending.
HERMAN MELVILLE -
Honor lies in the mane of a horse.
HERMAN MELVILLE -
Fame is an accident; merit a thing absolute.
HERMAN MELVILLE -
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.
HERMAN MELVILLE -
There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness is the true method.
HERMAN MELVILLE -
When among wild beasts, if they menace you, be a wild beast.
HERMAN MELVILLE -
Truth uncompromisingly told will always have its ragged edges.
HERMAN MELVILLE -
The poor man wants many things; the covetous man, all.
HERMAN MELVILLE -
Dream tonight of peacock tails, Diamond fields and spouter whales. Ills are many, blessing few, But dreams tonight will shelter you.
HERMAN MELVILLE -
Life’s a voyage that’s homeward bound.
HERMAN MELVILLE -
A smile is the chosen vehicle of all ambiguities.
HERMAN MELVILLE -
Hope is the struggle of the soul, breaking loose from what is perishable, and attesting her eternity.
HERMAN MELVILLE -
Ignorance is the parent of fear.
HERMAN MELVILLE -
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?
HERMAN MELVILLE -
Only the man who says no is free
HERMAN MELVILLE -
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.
HERMAN MELVILLE -
Silence is the only Voice of our God.
HERMAN MELVILLE -
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 MELVILLE