It is not for man to follow the trail of truth too far, since by so doing he entirely loses the directing… — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
O Nature, and O soul of man! how far beyond all utterance are your linked analogies; not the smallest atom stirs or… — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
Thus it often is, that the constant friction of illiberal minds wears out at last the best resolves of the more generous. — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
Any appellative at all savouring of arbitrary rank is unsuitable to a man of liberal and catholic mind. — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
Genius, all over the world, stands hand in hand, and one shock of recognition runs the whole circle round. — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
Is he mad? Anyway there's something on his mind, as sure as there must be something on a deck when it cracks. — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
The grand principles of virtue and honor, however they may be distorted by arbitrary codes, are the same the world over: and… — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
Say what some poets will, Nature is not so much her own ever-sweet interpreter, as the mere supplier of that cunning alphabet,… — 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
“it was Queequeg's conceit, that if a man made up his mind to live, mere sickness could not kill him: nothing but… — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
“But the thing which in eminent instances signalizes so exceptional a nature is this: Though the man's even temper and discreet bearing… — 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 fog with a heavenly ray. And for this I thank God; for all have doubts; many deny; but doubts or denials, few along with them, have intuitions. Doubts of all things earthly, and intuitions of some things heavenly;… — Herman Melville Copy Share
“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 write it; for it is a thing most sorrowful, nay shocking, to expose the fall of valour in the soul. Men may seem detestable as joint stock-companies and nations; knaves, fools, and murderers there may be;… — Herman Melville Copy Share
“(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 down stairs five miles or more; and if he don't attain the bottom, why all the lead in Galena can't fashion the plummet that will. I'm not talking of Mr Emerson now -but of the whole… — Herman Melville Copy Share
“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 sea. Wrapped, for that interval, in darkness myself, I but the better saw the redness, the madness, the ghastliness of others. The continual sight of the fiend shapes before me, capering half in smoke and half… — Herman Melville Copy Share
“Consider the subtleness of the sea; how its most dreaded creatures glide under water, unapparent for the most part, and treacherously hidden beneath the loveliest tints of azure. Consider also the devilish brilliance and beauty of many of its most remorseless tribes, as the dainty embellished shape of many species of sharks. Consider, once more, the universal cannibalism of the… — Herman Melville Copy Share
“Is it that by its indefiniteness it shadows forth the heartless voids and immensities of the universe, and thus stabs us from behind with the thought of annihilation, when beholding the white depths of the milky way? Or is it, that as in essence whiteness is not so much a color as the visible absence of color, and at the… — Herman Melville Copy Share
“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 not kill or insult any other person, because that other person don't believe it also. But when a man's religion becomes really frantic; when it is a positive torment to him; and, in fine, makes this… — Herman Melville Copy Share
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 then, with weary patience, cleansed ourselves from its defilements, and learned to live here in clean tabernacles of the soul; hardly is this done, when-There she blows!-the ghost is spouted up, and away we sail to… — Herman Melville Copy Share
