He who has never failed somewhere, that man can not be great.
HERMAN MELVILLEAll deep, earnest thinking is but the intrepid effort of the soul to keep the open independence of her sea, while the wildest winds of heaven and earth conspire to cast her on the treacherous, slavish shore.
More Herman Melville Quotes
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The worst of our evils we blindly inflict upon ourselves; our officers cannot remove them, even if they would.
HERMAN MELVILLE -
A man of true science… thinks, that by mouthing hard words, he proves that he understands hard things.
HERMAN MELVILLE -
The poor man wants many things; the covetous man, all.
HERMAN MELVILLE -
It is not down in any map; true places never are.
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 -
There is a savor of life and immortality in substantial fare. Like balloons, we are nothing till filled.
HERMAN MELVILLE -
Is there some principal of nature which states that we never know the quality of what we have until it is gone?
HERMAN MELVILLE -
Better to sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunken Christian.
HERMAN MELVILLE -
There is no quality in this world that is not what it is merely by contrast. Nothing exists in itself.
HERMAN MELVILLE -
Fame is an accident; merit a thing absolute.
HERMAN MELVILLE -
I am, as I am; whether hideous, or handsome, depends upon who is made judge.
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 -
I know not all that may be coming, but be it what it will, I’ll go to it laughing.
HERMAN MELVILLE -
We cannot live for ourselves alone.
HERMAN MELVILLE -
You know nothing till you know all; which is the reason we never know any thing.
HERMAN MELVILLE






