I am, as I am; whether hideous, or handsome, depends upon who is made judge.
HERMAN MELVILLEFailure is the test of greatness.
More Herman Melville Quotes
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Whatever my fate, I’ll go to it laughing.
HERMAN MELVILLE -
The path to my fixed purpose is laid with iron rails whereon my soul is grooved to run
HERMAN MELVILLE -
See how elastic our prejudices grow when once love comes to bend them.
HERMAN MELVILLE -
You know nothing till you know all; which is the reason we never know any thing.
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 -
Real strength never impairs beauty or harmony, but it often bestows it, and in everything imposingly beautiful, strength has much to do with the magic.
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 -
It is hard to be finite upon an infinite subject, and all subjects are infinite.
HERMAN MELVILLE -
Meditation and water are wedded for ever.
HERMAN MELVILLE -
A smile is the chosen vehicle of all ambiguities.
HERMAN MELVILLE -
They talk of the dignity of work. The dignity is in leisure.
HERMAN MELVILLE -
Genius, all over the world, stands hand in hand, and one shock of recognition runs the whole circle round.
HERMAN MELVILLE -
The worst of our evils we blindly inflict upon ourselves; our officers cannot remove them, even if they would.
HERMAN MELVILLE -
Ignorance is the parent of fear.
HERMAN MELVILLE -
It is not down in any map; true places never are.
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 -
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 -
Art is the objectification of feeling.
HERMAN MELVILLE -
A man of true science… thinks, that by mouthing hard words, he proves that he understands hard things.
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 -
In a multitude of acquaintances is less security, than in one faithful friend.
HERMAN MELVILLE -
Stay true to the dreams of thy youth.
HERMAN MELVILLE -
The only true infidelity is for a live man to vote himself dead.
HERMAN MELVILLE -
We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men.
HERMAN MELVILLE -
We cannot live for ourselves alone.
HERMAN MELVILLE -
I cherish the greatest respect towards everybody’s religious obligations, no matter how comical.
HERMAN MELVILLE