For my part I love sleepy fellows, and the more ignorant the better. Damn your wide-awake and knowing chaps. As for sleepiness,… — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
Start her, now; give 'em the long and strong stroke, Tashtego. Start her, Tash, my boy-start her, all; but keep cool, keep… — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
beauty is like piety--you cannot run and read it; tranquility and constancy, with, now-a-days, an easy chair, are needed. — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
Forty years after a battle it is easy for a non-combatant to reason about how it ought to have been fought. It… — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
And yet self-knowledge is thought by some not so easy. Who knows, my dear sir, but for a time you may have… — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
“and man, though idiotic, and knowing not what he does, yet full of the sweet things of love and gratitude.” — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
“But were the coming narrative to reveal in any instance, the complete abasement of poor Starbuck's fortitude, scarce might I have the heart to… — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
“(On Ralph Waldo Emerson)I love all men who dive. Any fish can swim near the surface, but it takes a great whale to go… — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
“So seemed it to me, as I stood at her helm, and for long hours silently guided the way of this fire-ship on the… — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
“Consider the subtleness of the sea; how its most dreaded creatures glide under water, unapparent for the most part, and treacherously hidden beneath the… — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
“Is it that by its indefiniteness it shadows forth the heartless voids and immensities of the universe, and thus stabs us from behind with… — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
“Now, as I before hinted, I have no objection to any person's religion, be it what it may, so long as that person does… — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
Let America first praise mediocrity even, in her children, before she praises... the best excellence in the children of any other land. — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
“Yet this is life. For hardly have we mortals by long toilings extracted from this world's vast bulk its small but valuable sperm; and… — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
