I’ll try a pagan friend, thought I, since Christian kindness has proved but hollow courtesy.
HERMAN MELVILLEI am, as I am; whether hideous, or handsome, depends upon who is made judge.
More Herman Melville Quotes
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Failure is the test of greatness.
HERMAN MELVILLE -
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.
HERMAN MELVILLE -
There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness is the true method.
HERMAN MELVILLE -
The poor man wants many things; the covetous man, all.
HERMAN MELVILLE -
In a multitude of acquaintances is less security, than in one faithful friend.
HERMAN MELVILLE -
To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme.
HERMAN MELVILLE -
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 -
A book in a man’s brain is better off than a book bound in calf – at any rate it is safer from criticism.
HERMAN MELVILLE -
You cannot hide the soul.
HERMAN MELVILLE -
Better to sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunken Christian.
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 -
Stay true to the dreams of thy youth.
HERMAN MELVILLE -
Hope is the struggle of the soul, breaking loose from what is perishable, and attesting her eternity.
HERMAN MELVILLE -
It is hard to be finite upon an infinite subject, and all subjects are infinite.
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 -
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 -
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?
HERMAN MELVILLE -
See how elastic our prejudices grow when once love comes to bend them.
HERMAN MELVILLE -
Only the man who says no is free
HERMAN MELVILLE -
No philosophers so thoroughly comprehend us as dogs and horses.
HERMAN MELVILLE -
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.
HERMAN MELVILLE -
The sweetest joys of life grow in the very jaws of its perils.
HERMAN MELVILLE -
Yet habit – strange thing! what cannot habit accomplish?
HERMAN MELVILLE -
Silence is the only Voice of our God.
HERMAN MELVILLE -
There is one knows not what sweet mystery about this sea, whose gently awful stirrings seem to speak of some hidden soul beneath.
HERMAN MELVILLE -
Friendship at first sight, like love at first sight, is said to be the only truth.
HERMAN MELVILLE