Think not, is my eleventh commandment; and sleep when you can, is my twelfth.
HERMAN MELVILLEThere is a savor of life and immortality in substantial fare. Like balloons, we are nothing till filled.
More Herman Melville Quotes
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Ladies are like creeds; if you cannot speak well of them, say nothing.
HERMAN MELVILLE -
We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men.
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 -
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 -
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 -
There is nothing so slipperily alluring as sadness; we become sad in the first place by having nothing stirring to do; we continue in it, because we have found a snug sofa at last.
HERMAN MELVILLE -
A smile is the chosen vehicle of all ambiguities.
HERMAN MELVILLE -
Faith, like a jackal, feeds among the tombs, and even from these dead doubts she gathers her most vital hope.
HERMAN MELVILLE -
Silence is the only Voice of our God.
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 -
No philosophers so thoroughly comprehend us as dogs and horses.
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 -
The most mighty of nature’s laws is this, that out of Death she brings Life.
HERMAN MELVILLE -
Thinking is, or ought to be, a coolness and a calmness; and our poor hearts throb, and our poor brains beat too much for that.
HERMAN MELVILLE -
It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation.
HERMAN MELVILLE -
All 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.
HERMAN MELVILLE -
They talk of the dignity of work. The dignity is in leisure.
HERMAN MELVILLE -
Truth uncompromisingly told will always have its ragged edges.
HERMAN MELVILLE -
As for me, I am tormented with an everlasting itch for things remote. I love to sail forbidden seas, and land on barbarous coasts.
HERMAN MELVILLE -
What plays the mischief with the truth is that men will insist upon the universal application of a temporary feeling or opinion.
HERMAN MELVILLE -
Ignorance is the parent of fear.
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 -
Truth is in things, and not in words.
HERMAN MELVILLE -
Better be an old maid, a woman with herself as a husband, than the wife of a fool; and Solomon more than hints that all men are fools; and every wise man knows himself to be one.
HERMAN MELVILLE -
The path to my fixed purpose is laid with iron rails whereon my soul is grooved to run
HERMAN MELVILLE -
The eyes are the gateway to the soul.
HERMAN MELVILLE