None but a good man is really a living man, and the more good any man does, the more he really lives.… — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
“There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe… — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
“There is no steady unretracing progress in this life; we do not advance through fixed gradations, and at the last one pause:--… — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
In their precise tracings-out and subtle causations, the strongest and fieriest emotions of life defy all analytical insight. — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
When I think of this life I have led; the desolation of solitude it has been; the masoned, walled-town of a Captain's… — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
There was about all the Romans a heroic tone peculiar to ancient life. Their virtues were great and noble, and these virtues… — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
The Past is dead, and has no resurrection; but the Future is endowed with such a life, that it lives to us… — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
All men live enveloped in whale-lines. All are born with halters round their necks; but it is only when caught in the… — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
Methinks we have hugely mistaken this matter of Life and Death. Methinks that what they call my shadow here on earth is… — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
“I have sat before the dense coal fire and watched it all aglow, full of its tormented flaming life; and I have… — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
“Yes, there is death in this business of whaling—a speechlessly quick chaotic bundling of a man into Eternity. But what then? Methinks… — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
“There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe… — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
“Old age is always wakeful; as if, the longer linked with life, the less man has to do with aught that looks… — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
“one captain, seizing the line-knife from his broken prow, had dashed at the whale, as an Arkansas duelist at his foe, blindly… — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
The friendship of fine-hearted, generous boys, nurtured amid the romance-engendering comforts and elegancies of life, sometimes transcends the bounds of mere boyishness,… — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
What troops Of generous boys in happiness thus bred Saturnians through life's Tempe led, Went from the North and came from the… — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
For as this appalling ocean surrounds the verdant land, so in the soul of man there lies one insular Tahiti, full of… — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
“Methinks we have hugely mistaken this matter of Life and Death. Methinks that what they call my shadow here on earth is… — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
“If your banker breaks, you snap; if your apothecary by mistake sends you poison in your pills, you die. True, you may… — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
There is no life in thee, now, except that rocking life imparted by a gently rolling ship; by her, borrowed from the… — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
The sailor is frankness, the landsman is finesse. Life is not a game with the sailor, demanding the long head — 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
