“Oh, thou clear spirit, of thy fire thou madest me, and like a true child of fire, I breathe it back to… — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
It is with fiction as with religion: it should present another world, and yet one to which we feel the tie. — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
“There, then, he sat, the sign and symbol of a man without faith, hopelessly holding up hope in the midst of despair.” — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
I cherish the greatest respect towards everybody's religious obligations, no matter how comical. — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
Zeal is not of necessity religion, neither is it always of the same essence with poetry or patriotism. — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
The world's a ship on its voyage out, and not a voyage complete; and the pulpit is its prow. — 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… — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
“Can it be, then, that by that act of physical isolation, he signifies his spiritual withdrawal for the time, from all outward… — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
“for I cherish the greatest respect towards everybody’s religious obligations, never mind how comical, and could not find it in my heart… — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
“Methinks that in looking at things spiritual, we are too much like oysters observing the sun through the water, and thinking that… — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
When my eye rested on an arid height, spirit partook of the barrenness. - Heartily wish Niebuhr & Strauss to the dogs.… — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
“But what is worship? thought I. Do you suppose now, Ishmael, that the magnanimous God of heaven and earth—pagans and all included—can… — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
I have no objection to any person's religion, be it what it may, so long as that person does not kill or… — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
Standing navies, as well as standing armies, serve to keep alive the spirit of war even in the meek heart of peace.… — 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 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
Where is there such an one who has not a thousand times been struck with a sort of infidel idea, that whatever… — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
A chaplain is the minister of the Prince of Peace serving the host of the God of War--Mars. As such, he is… — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
“I say, I can not identify that thing which is called happiness, that thing whose token is a laugh, or a smile,… — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
Ladies are like creeds; if you cannot speak well of them, say nothing. — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
“Thought he, it's a wicked world in all meridians; I'll die a pagan.” — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
Though the ancients were ignorant of the principles of Christianity there were in them the germs of its spirit. — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
The western spirit is, or will yet be (for no other is, or can be) the true American one. — 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 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
