“Oh! how immaterial are all materials! What things real are there, but imponderable thoughts? Here now ’s the very dreaded symbol of… — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
I am a man who, from his youth upwards, has been filled with a profound conviction that the easiest way of life… — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
In placid hours well-pleased we dream Of many a brave unbodied scheme. But form to lend, pulsed life create, What unlike things… — 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--no intricate game… — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
“Oh, grassy glades! oh ever vernal endless landscapes in the soul; in ye,—though long parched by the dead drought of the earthly… — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
“Strangest problems of life seem clearing; but clouds sweep between--Is my journey’s end coming?” — 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
“So have I seen Passion and Vanity stamping the living magnanimous earth, but the earth did not alter her tides and her… — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
“that same image, we ourselves see in all rivers and oceans. It is the image of the ungraspable phantom of life; and… — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
“His three boats stove around him, and oars and men both whirling in the eddies; one captain, seizing the line-knife from his… — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
“Here some one thrust these cards into these old hands of mine, swears that I must play them, and no others. And… — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
“Seldom have I known any profound being that had anything to say to this world, unless forced to stammer out something by… — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men; and among those fibers, as sympathetic threads,… — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
That hour in the life of a man when first the help of humanity fails him, and he learns that in his… — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
In our man-of-war world, Life comes in at one gangway and Death goes overboard at the other. Under the man-of-war scourge, cursesmix… — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
“That over these sea pastures, wide rolling watery prairies, and Potters' Fields of all four continents, the waves should rise and fall,… — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
Many sensible things banished from high life find an asylum among the mob. — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
“I say, White-Jacket, d'ye mind me? there never was a very great man yet who spent all his life inland. A snuff… — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
“many is the time the poor fellows, just buttoning the necks of their clean frocks, are startled by the cry of "There… — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
“Glimpses do ye seem to see of that mortally intolerable truth; that all deep, earnest thinking is but the intrepid effort of… — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
“But pity there was none. For all his old age, and his one arm, and his blind eyes, he must die the… — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
“For the most part, in this tropic whaling life, a sublime uneventfulness invests you; you hear no news; read no gazettes; extras… — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
“Give not thyself up, then, to fire, lest it invert thee, deaden thee; as for the time it did me. There is… — 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
