Herman Melville

Know, thou, that the lines that live are turned out of a furrowed brow.

— Herman Melville

Everyone knows that in most people's estimation, to do anything cooly is to do it genteelly.

— Herman Melville

The Past is the textbook of tyrants; the Future is the Bible of the Free.

— Herman Melville

To treat of human actions is to deal wholly with second causes.

— Herman Melville

An utterly fearless man is a far more dangerous comrade than a coward.

— Herman Melville

“Woe to him whose good name is more to him than goodness.”

— Herman Melville

The sea had jeeringly kept his finite body up, but drowned the infinite of his soul.

— Herman Melville

I am tormented with an everlasting itch for things remote. I love to sail forbidden seas.

— Herman Melville

He who is ready to despair in solitary peril, plucks up a heart in the presence of another. In a plurality of…

— Herman Melville

“Aye, aye, it must be so. I've oversailed him. How, got the start? Aye, he's chasing ME now; not I, HIM--that's bad”

— Herman Melville

“Thus, gentlemen, though an inlander, Steelkilt was wild-ocean born, and wild-ocean nurtured; as much of an audacious mariner as any.”

— Herman Melville

“s eye view of what has been promiscuously said, thought, fancied, and sung of Leviathan, by many nations and generations, including our…

— Herman Melville

“So have I seen Passion and Vanity stamping the living magnanimous earth, but the earth did not alter her tides and her…

— Herman Melville

“Would to God these blessed calms would last. But the mingled, mingling threads of life are woven by warp and woof: calms…

— Herman Melville

We talk of the Turks, and abhor the cannibals; but may not some of them, go to heaven, before some of us?

— Herman Melville

“And here, shipmates, is true and faithful repentance; not clamorous for pardon, but grateful for punishment.”

— Herman Melville

“If your banker breaks, you snap; if your apothecary by mistake sends you poison in your pills, you die. True, you may…

— Herman Melville

But as in landlessness alone resides the highest truth, shoreless, indefinite as God - so better is it to perish in that…

— Herman Melville

“Here I am, proud as Greek god, and yet standing debtor to this blockhead for a bone to stand on! Cursed be…

— Herman Melville

But when a man suspects any wrong it sometimes happens that if he be already involved in the matter he insensibly strives…

— Herman Melville

“for I cherish the greatest respect towards everybody’s religious obligations, never mind how comical, and could not find it in my heart…

— Herman Melville

“In those jaws of swift destruction, like another Jonah (by which name they indeed called him), bustles a little withered old man,…

— Herman Melville

True Work is the necessity of poor humanity's earthly condition. The dignity is in leisure. Besides, 99 hundredths of all the work…

— Herman Melville

It is-or seems to be-a wise sort of thing, to realise that all that happens to a man in this life is…

— Herman Melville

“the only real owner of anything is its commander;”

— Herman Melville

“Moby Dick doesn't bite so much as he swallows.”

— Herman Melville

Boy, take my advice, and never try to invent any thing but--happiness.

— Herman Melville

I love to sail forbidden seas, and land on barbarous coasts.

— Herman Melville

No philosophers so thoroughly comprehend us as dogs and horses.

— Herman Melville

For whatever is truly wondrous and fearful in man, never yet was put into words or books.

— Herman Melville

A smile is the chosen vehicle of all ambiguities.

— Herman Melville

Poor people make a very poor business of it when they try to seem rich.

— Herman Melville

“Often ill comes from the good, as good from ill.”

— Herman Melville

Talk not to me of blasphemy, man; I'd strike the sun if it insulted me.

— Herman Melville

“Queequeq, my fine friend, does this sort of thing often happen?”

— Herman Melville

I have written a wicked book, and feel spotless as the lamb.

— Herman Melville

All Profound things, and emotions of things are preceded and attended by Silence.

— Herman Melville

Youth is immortal; Tis the elderly only grow old!

— Herman Melville

The western spirit is, or will yet be (for no other is, or can be) the true American one.

— Herman Melville

“Wonderfullest things are ever the unmentionable; deep memories yield no epitaphs”

— Herman Melville