Herman Melville Quotes

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.

The poor man wants many things; the covetous man, all.

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.

Yet habit – strange thing! what cannot habit accomplish?

If you can get nothing better out of the world, get a good dinner out of it, at least.

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.

Old age is always wakeful; as if, the longer linked with life, the less man has to do with aught that looks like death.

In a multitude of acquaintances is less security, than in one faithful friend.

The path to my fixed purpose is laid with iron rails whereon my soul is grooved to run

As for me, I am tormented with an everlasting itch for things remote. I love to sail forbidden seas, and land on barbarous coasts.