For in tremendous extremities human souls are like drowning men; well enough they know they are in peril; well enough they know… — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
For God's sake, be economical with your lamps and candles! not a gallon you burn, but at least one drop of man's… — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
There's magic in the water that draws all men away form the land, that leads them over hills, down creeks and streams… — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
All visible objects, man, are but as pasteboard masks. But in each event — in the living act, the undoubted deed —… — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
In childhood, death stirred me not; in middle age, it pursued me like a prowling bandit on the road; now, grown an… — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
There is no Champollion to decipher the Egypt of every man's and every being's face. Physiognomy, like every other human science,is but… — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
Men there are, who having quite done with the world, all its merely worldly contents are become so far indifferent, that they… — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
Personal prudence, even when dictated by quite other than selfish considerations, surely is no special virtue in a military man; while an… — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
I am sorry to say we whites have a sad reputation among many of the Polynesians. The natives of these islands are… — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
The earliest instinct of the child, and the ripest experience of age, unite in affirming simplicity to be the truest and profoundest… — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
An indiscriminate distrust of human nature is the worst consequence of a miserable condition, whether brought about by innocence or guilt. And… — 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
The sun hides not the ocean, which is the dark side of this earth, and which is two thirds of this earth.… — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
People think that if a man has undergone any hardship, he should have a reward; but for my part, if I have… — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
Books, gentlemen, are a species of men, and introduced to them you circulate in the "very best society" that this world can… — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
And so, through all the thick mists of the dim doubts in my mind, divine intuitions now and then shoot, enkindling my… — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
The entire merit of a man can never be made known; nor the sum of his demerits, if he have them. We… — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
But I shall follow the endless, winding way, — the flowing river in the cave of man; careless whither I be led,… — 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
I will live and die by this testimony: that I loved a good conscience; that I never invaded another man's liberty; and… — 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
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
Stripped of the cunning artifices of the tailor, and standing forth in the garb of Eden - what a sorry set of… — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
He who has never failed somewhere, that man can notbe great. Failure is the true test of greatness. And if it be… — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
“Seat thyself sultanically among the moons of Saturn, and take high abstracted man alone; and he seems a wonder, a grandeur, and… — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
However baby man may brag of his science and skill, and however much, in a flattering future, that science and skill may… — 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
There is nothing namable but that some men will, or undertake to, do it for pay. — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
An utterly fearless man is a far more dangerous comrade than a coward. — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
As with ships, so with men; he who turns his back to his foe gives him an advantage. — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
Man, in the ideal, is so noble and so sparkling, such a grand and glowing creature, that over any ignominious blemish in… — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
Familiarity with danger makes a brave man braver, but less daring. Thus with seamen: he who goes the oftenest round Cape Horn… — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
Much of a man's character will be found betokened in his backbone. I would rather feel your spine than your skull, whoever… — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
Better be an old maid, a woman with herself as a husband, than the wife of a fool; and Solomon more than… — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
It is better to fail in originality, than to succeed in imitation. He who has never failed somewhere, that man can not… — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
Ah! the best righteousness of our man-of-war world seems but an unrealized ideal, after all; and those maxims which, in the hope… — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
“Passion, and passion in its profoundest, is not a thing demanding a palatial stage whereon to play its part. Down among the… — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
All experience teaches that, whenever there is a great national establishment, employing large numbers of officials, the public must be reconciled to… — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
In glades they meet skull after skull Where pine cones lay-the rusted gun, Green shoes full of bones, the mouldering coat And… — 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
