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Herman Melville Quotes - Page 12

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Surrounded as we are by the wants and woes of our fellow-men, and yet given to follow our own pleasures, regardless of their pains, are we not like people sitting up with a corpse, and making merry in the house of the

Surrounded as we are by the wants and woes of our fellow-men, and yet given to follow our own pleasures, regardless of their pains, are we not like people sitting up with a corpse, and making merry in the house of the dead?

Herman Melville
Pain, Men, People
Herman Melville (2016). “Redburn.His First Voyage”, p.208, Herman Melville

In armies, navies, cities, or families, in nature herself, nothing more relaxes good order than misery.

Herman Melville
Army, Order, Cities
Herman Melville (2009). “Billy Budd and Other Tales”, p.140, Penguin

We cannibals must help these Christians.

Herman Melville
Christian, Helping, Cannibal
Herman Melville, D. H. Lawrence (2013). “Moby-Dick (Unabridged) + D. H. Lawrence's critique of Moby-Dick”, p.48, e-artnow

How feeble is all language to describe the horrors we inflict upon these wretches, whom we mason up in the cells of our prisons, and condemn to perpetual solitude in the very heart of our population.

Herman Melville
Heart, Cells, Punishment
Herman Melville (1968). “Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life”, p.125, Northwestern University Press

Wag the world how it will, Leaves must be green in Spring.

Herman Melville
Spring, World, Green
Herman Melville (1866). “Battle-pieces and aspects of the war [poems].”, p.68

Aye, aye! and I'll chase him round Good Hope, and round the Horn, and round the Norway Maelstrom, and round perdition's flames before I give him up.

Herman Melville
Flames, Whales, Giving
Herman Melville (1892). “Moby Dick”, p.156

Niggards are oftentimes neat.

Herman Melville
Niggard, Neat, Neatness
Herman Melville (2015). “Mardi: and A Voyage Thither: Works of Melville”, p.219, 谷月社

It is well known, that the best productions of the best human intellects, are generally regarded by those intellects as mere immature freshman exercises, wholly worthless in themselves, except as initiatives for entering the great University of God after death.

Herman Melville
Creativity, Exercise, Immature
Herman Melville (2017). “Pierre: Or, the Ambiguities”, p.179, W. W. Norton & Company

Appalling is the soul of a man! Better might one be pushed off into the material spaces beyond the uttermost orbit of our sun, than once feel himself fairly afloat in himself.

Herman Melville
Men, Space, Soul
Herman Melville (2016). “The Ambiguities”, p.476, Herman Melville

To be a born American citizen seems a guarantee against pauperism; and this, perhaps, springs from the virtue of a vote.

Herman Melville
Spring, Citizens, Guarantees
Herman Melville (2015). “Redburn's First Voyage: Works of Melville”, p.170, 谷月社

That mortal man who hath more of joy than sorrow in him, that mortal man cannot be true--not true, or undeveloped.

Herman Melville
Men, Joy, Sorrow
Herman Melville (2008). “Moby-Dick”, p.473, Velvet Element Books

War should be carried on like a monsoon; one changeless determination of every particle towards the one unalterable aim.

Herman Melville
Determination, War, Monsoons
Herman Melville (2016). “Israel Potter: His Fifty Years of Exile and Life and Remarkable Adventures of Israel R. Potter”, p.68, Courier Dover Publications

I am madness maddened! That wild madness that's only calm to comprehend itself

Herman Melville
Calm, Madness
Herman Melville, Harrison Hayford, Hershel Parker, G. Thomas Tanselle (1988). “Moby Dick, Or The Whale: Volume 6, Scholarly Edition”, p.168, Northwestern University Press

I rejoice in my spine, as in the firm audacious staff of that flag which I fling half out to the world.

Herman Melville
Flags, Half, World
Herman Melville (2008). “Moby-Dick”, p.389, Velvet Element Books

To be hated cordially, is only a left-handed compliment.

Herman Melville
Left Handers, Literature, Lefties
Herman Melville (1982). “Herman Melville: Typee, Omoo, Mardi”, p.520, Library of America

It is with fiction as with religion: it should present another world, and yet one to which we feel the tie.

Herman Melville
Ties, Religion, Fiction
Herman Melville (2015). “The Confidence-Man: Works of Melville”, p.171, 谷月社

Say what some poets will, Nature is not so much her own ever-sweet interpreter, as the mere supplier of that cunning alphabet, whereby selecting and combining as he pleases, each man reads his own peculiar lesson according to his own peculiar mind and mood.

Herman Melville
Sweet, Men, Mind
Herman Melville (2016). “Pierre; or The Ambiguities”, p.433, Herman Melville

Out of the trunk, the branches grow; out of them, the twigs. So, in productive subjects, grow the chapters.

Herman Melville
Branches, Twigs, Chapters
Herman Melville (1892). “Moby Dick”, p.275

The world's a ship on its voyage out, and not a voyage complete; and the pulpit is its prow.

Herman Melville
Religion, World, Voyages

Thrusted light is worse than presented pistols.

Herman Melville
Light, Pistols
Herman Melville (2008). “Moby-Dick”, p.523, Velvet Element Books

There are two places in the world where men can most effectively disappear - the city of London and the South Seas.

Herman Melville
Men, Sea, Cities
Herman Melville, Harrison Hayford, G. Thomas Tanselle (1987). “Piazza Tales and Other Prose Pieces, 1839-1860: Volume Nine, Scholarly Edition”, p.418, Northwestern University Press

In what rapt ether sails the world, of which the weariest will never weary?

Herman Melville
World, Sail, Weary
Herman Melville (2008). “Moby-Dick”, p.545, Velvet Element Books

Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean, roll! Ten thousand blubber-hunters sweep over thee in vain.

Herman Melville
Ocean, Dark, Blue
Herman Melville (2016). “Moby-Dick”, p.184, Tyché

In their precise tracings-out and subtle causations, the strongest and fieriest emotions of life defy all analytical insight.

Herman Melville
Emotion, Subtle, Insight

For whatever is truly wondrous and fearful in man, never yet was put into words or books.

Herman Melville
Fear, Book, Men
Herman Melville (2016). “Moby Dick (World Classics, Unabridged)”, p.328, Vij Books India Pvt Ltd

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