Awful Quote by Herman Melville
“The stillness of the calm is awful. His voice begins to grow strange and portentous. He feels it in him like something swallowed too big for the esophagus. It keeps up a sort of involuntary interior humming in him, like a live beetle. His cranium is a dome full of reverberations. The hollows of his very bones are as whispering galleries. He is afraid to speak loud, lest he be stunned; like the man in the bass drum.”
About This Quote
Source Novel: Moby-Dick by Herman Melville, 1851
The narrator describes an overwhelming internal turbulence that feels both alien and oppressive, likening it to a humming beetle inside a resonant skull.
In simple terms: Inner turmoil feels alien and oppressive.
Key Takeaway
Recognize and calm inner turbulence.
Themes
anxiety
perception
identity
sound
fear
Mood
uneasy
introspective
poetic
Type
literary
descriptive
When to use this quote
- public speaking
- creative writing
- stress management
- meditation
- self‑reflection
Key Concepts
psychology
sensory overload
metaphor
Questions to Reflect On
- How does inner chaos affect your communication?
- What strategies calm a resonant mind?
A Different Perspective
The metaphor may exaggerate the experience, making it hard to relate.
![“You find [reverberations from 9/11 ] in them most unexpected places, like graffiti on a wall. Sometimes it's a faded picture; sometimes it's a newspaper tacked to a wall. Sometimes it's weird paraphernalia related to it, home constructed paraphernalia. It resonates through society and continues to…” quote by Peter van Agtmael](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/f33/peter-van-agtmael-25908_faded_you-find-reverberations-from-9-11-in-the_312019.jpg)
