I love to sail forbidden seas, and land on barbarous coasts.
HERMAN MELVILLEA smile is the chosen vehicle of all ambiguities.
More Herman Melville Quotes
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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.
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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.
HERMAN MELVILLE -
I am, as I am; whether hideous, or handsome, depends upon who is made judge.
HERMAN MELVILLE -
Life’s a voyage that’s homeward bound.
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Dream tonight of peacock tails, Diamond fields and spouter whales. Ills are many, blessing few, But dreams tonight will shelter you.
HERMAN MELVILLE -
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.
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It is hard to be finite upon an infinite subject, and all subjects are infinite.
HERMAN MELVILLE -
Failure is the test of greatness.
HERMAN MELVILLE -
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.
HERMAN MELVILLE -
Yet habit – strange thing! what cannot habit accomplish?
HERMAN MELVILLE -
A thing may be incredible and still be true; sometimes it is incredible because it is true.
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Faith, like a jackal, feeds among the tombs, and even from these dead doubts she gathers her most vital hope.
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.
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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.
HERMAN MELVILLE -
Old age is always wakeful; as if, the longer linked with life, the less man has to do with aught that looks like death.
HERMAN MELVILLE






