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Herman Melville Quotes - Page 11

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One would like to know, what were foes made for except to be used?

One would like to know, what were foes made for except to be used?

Herman Melville
Use, Made, Foe
Herman Melville (2016). “Pierre; or The Ambiguities”, p.282, Herman Melville

For all his tattooings he was on the whole a clean, comely looking cannibal.

Herman Melville
Clean, Cannibal, Whole
Herman Melville (2016). “Moby Dick (World Classics, Unabridged)”, p.19, Vij Books India Pvt Ltd

Praise when merited is not a boon: yet to a generous nature, is it pleasant to utter it.

Herman Melville
Praise, Boon, Pleasant
Herman Melville, Robert C. Ryan, Hershel Parker (2009). “Published Poems: The Writings of Herman Melville”, p.680, Northwestern University Press

In thoughts of the visions of the night, I saw long rows of angels in paradise, each with his hands in a jar of spermaceti.

Herman Melville
Angel, Night, Hands
Herman Melville (2015). “Moby Dick”, p.452, Xist Publishing

What like a bullet can undeceive!

Herman Melville
Deception, Bullets
Herman Melville (2006). “Selected Poems (Melville, Herman)”, p.15, Penguin

This divineness had that in it which, though commanding worship, at the same time enforced a certain nameless terror.

Herman Melville
Inspirational, Worship, Certain
Herman Melville (2016). “Moby Dick (World Classics, Unabridged)”, p.131, Vij Books India Pvt Ltd

Any appellative at all savouring of arbitrary rank is unsuitable to a man of liberal and catholic mind.

Herman Melville
Men, Catholic, Mind
Herman Melville (1963). “Works: Billy Budd, and other prose pieces, edited by R. W. Weaver”

Hell is an idea first born on an undigested apple dumpling.

Herman Melville
Food, Ideas, Apples
Herman Melville (1892). “Moby Dick”, p.86

There's something ever egotistical in mountain-tops and towers, and all other grand and lofty things.

Herman Melville
Climbing, Mountain, Towers
"Moby Dick".

Climate of Egypt in winter is the reign of spring upon earth, & summer in the air, and tranquility in the heat.

Herman Melville
Summer, Spring, Winter
Herman Melville, Howard C. Horsford, Lynn Horth (1989). “Journals”, p.77, Northwestern University Press

Can it be, that the Greek grammarians invented their dual number for the particular benefit of twins?

Herman Melville
Numbers, Greek, Benefits
Herman Melville (1969). “Redburn, His First Voyage: Being the Sailor-boy Confessions and Reminiscences of the Son-of-a-gentleman, in the Merchant Service”, p.269, Northwestern University Press

Forty years after a battle it is easy for a non-combatant to reason about how it ought to have been fought. It is another thing personally and under fire to direct the fighting while involved in the obscuring smoke of it.

Herman Melville
Fighting, Fire, Years
Herman Melville (2009). “Billy Budd and Other Tales”, p.73, Penguin

At length I fell asleep, with the volume in my hand; and never slept so sound before

Herman Melville
Hands, Sound, Volume
Herman Melville, Harrison Hayford, G. Thomas Tanselle (1969). “Redburn: Works of Herman Melville Volume Four”, p.87, Northwestern University Press

Ah, Bartleby! Ah, humanity!

Herman Melville
Humanity
"Bartleby the Scrivener" (1856)

There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes his whole universe for a vast practical joke.

Herman Melville
Men, Strange, Affair
Herman Melville (1892). “Moby Dick”, p.216

We Americans are the peculiar, chosen people - the Israel of our time; we bear the ark of the liberties of the world.

Herman Melville
Israel, People, Democracy
Herman Melville (1850). “White-jacket: or, The world in a man-of-war”, p.151

But the might-have-been is but boggy ground to build upon.

Herman Melville
Might, Might Have Been, Has Beens
Herman Melville (2009). “Billy Budd and Other Tales”, p.27, Penguin

Let me look into a human eye; it is better than to gaze into sea or sky; better than to gaze upon God.

Herman Melville
God, Eye, Sea
1851 Captain Ahab. Moby Dick, ch.132.

An intense copper calm, like a universal yellow lotus, was more and more unfolding its noiseless measureless leaves upon the sea.

Herman Melville
Sunset, Sea, Yellow
Herman Melville (2008). “Moby-Dick”, p.346, Velvet Element Books

Though the ancients were ignorant of the principles of Christianity there were in them the germs of its spirit.

Herman Melville
Ignorant, Principles, Germs

All truth is profound.

Herman Melville
Truth, Profound, Truth Is
Herman Melville (2016). “Moby-Dick: Or, the Whale”, p.172, Cosimo, Inc.

Yea, foolish mortals, Noah's flood is not yet subsided; two thirds of the fair world it yet covers.

Herman Melville
Sea, Two, World
Herman Melville (2012). “Moby Dick in Plain and Simple English (Includes Study Guide, Complete Unabridged Book, Historical Context, and Character Index)(”, p.561, BookCaps Study Guides

Let us pray that the great historic tragedy of our time may not have been enacted without instructing our whole beloved country through terror and pity; and may fulfillment verify in the end those expectations which kindle the bards of Progress and Humanity.

Herman Melville
Country, War, Expectations
Herman Melville (1866). “Battle-pieces and aspects of the war [poems].”, p.272

Give me a condor's quill! Give me Vesuvius crater for an inkstand!

Herman Melville
Art, Writing, Giving
Herman Melville (1892). “Moby Dick”, p.428

There is the grand truth about Nathaniel Hawthorne. He says NO! in thunder; but the Devil himself cannot make him say yes. For all men who say yes, lie; and all men who say no,why, they are in the happy condition of judicious, unincumbered travellers in Europe; they cross the frontiers into Eternity with nothing but a carpet-bag,that is to say, the Ego. Whereas those yes-gentry, they travel with heaps of baggage, and, damn them! they will never get through the Custom House.

Herman Melville
Lying, Men, Europe
Herman Melville, Lynn Horth (1993). “Correspondence”, p.186, Northwestern University Press

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