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Herman Melville Quotes - Page 15

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Madman! Look through my eyes if thou hast none of thine own.

Madman! Look through my eyes if thou hast none of thine own.

Herman Melville
Eye, Looks, Madmen
Herman Melville, Harrison Hayford, G. Thomas Tanselle, Hershel Parker (1988). “Moby Dick, Or The Whale: Volume 6, Scholarly Edition”, p.504, Northwestern University Press

Familiarity with danger makes a brave man braver, but less daring. Thus with seamen: he who goes the oftenest round Cape Horn goes the most circumspectly.

Herman Melville
Men, Brave, Capes
Herman Melville (2015). “White Jacket, the World on a Man-of-War: Works of Melville”, p.85, 谷月社

Will you, or will you not, quit me? I now demanded in a sudden passion, advancing close to him. "I would prefer not to quit you", he replied, gently emphasizing the not.

Herman Melville
Passion, Quitting, Advancing
Herman Melville (2016). “Billy Budd, Bartleby, and Other Stories”, p.42, Penguin

Let us only hate hatred; and once give love a play, we will fall in love with a unicorn.

Herman Melville
Love, Hate, Fall
Herman Melville (1849). “Mardi: And a Voyage Thither”, p.56

Let us be Christians toward our fellow-whites, as well as philanthropists toward the blacks our fellow-men. In all things, and toward all, we are enjoined to do as we would be done by.

Herman Melville
Christian, Men, Would Be
Herman Melville (2015). “Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War: Works of Melville”, p.201, 谷月社

Courage is the most common and vulgar of the virtues.

Herman Melville
Courage, Common, Virtue
Herman Melville (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Herman Melville (Illustrated)”, p.1690, Delphi Classics

I have written a wicked book, and feel spotless as the lamb.

Herman Melville
Book, Wicked, Lambs
Herman Melville (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Herman Melville (Illustrated)”, p.4898, Delphi Classics

Ah, happiness courts the light so we deem the world is gay. But misery hides aloof so we deem that misery there is none.

Herman Melville
Gay, Light, World
Herman Melville (2016). “Bartleby, The Scrivener”, p.19, Herman Melville

To anybody who can hold the Present at its worth without being inappreciative of the Past, it may be forgiven, if to such an one the solitary old hulk at Portsmouth, Nelson's Victory, seems to float there, not alone as the decaying monument of a fame incorruptible, but also as a poetic approach, softened by its picturesqueness, to the Monitors and yet mightier hulls of the European ironclads.

Herman Melville
Past, Victory, Hull
Herman Melville (2016). “Billy Budd, Bartleby, and Other Stories”, p.166, Penguin

Be sure of this, O young ambition, all mortal greatness is but disease.

Herman Melville
Ambition, Greatness, Disease
Herman Melville (2016). “Moby Dick”, p.107, Herman Melville

Top-heavy was the ship as a dinnerless student with all Aristotle in his head.

Herman Melville
Ships, Students, Heavy
Herman Melville (2012). “Moby Dick (Illustrated & Annotated Edition)”, p.509, Jazzybee Verlag

But I shall follow the endless, winding way, — the flowing river in the cave of man; careless whither I be led, reckless where I land.

Herman Melville
Men, Land, Rivers
Herman Melville (1852). “Pierre; Or, The Ambiguities”, p.145

It is a thing which every sensible American should learn from every sensible Englishman, that glare and glitter, gimcracks and gewgaws, are not indispensable to domestic solacement.

Herman Melville
Glitter, Opulence, Glare
Herman Melville (2016). “Herman Melville The Dover Reader”, p.505, Courier Dover Publications

Thou wine art the friend of the friendless, though a foe to all.

Herman Melville
Art, Wine, Foe
Herman Melville (2015). “Mardi: and A Voyage Thither: Works of Melville”, p.201, 谷月社

Is it possible, after all, that spite of bricks and shaven faces, this world we live in is brimmed with wonders, and I and all mankind, beneath our garbs of common-placeness, conceal enigmas that the stars themselves, and perhaps the highest seraphim can not resolve?

Herman Melville
Stars, Faces, Bricks
Herman Melville (2016). “Pierre; or The Ambiguities”, p.179, Herman Melville

An indiscriminate distrust of human nature is the worst consequence of a miserable condition, whether brought about by innocence or guilt. And though want of suspicion more than want of sense, sometimes leads a man into harm; yet too much suspicion is as bad as too little sense.

Herman Melville
Men, Guilt, Too Much
Herman Melville (2015). “Israel Potter: Works of Melville”, p.39, 谷月社

Love is both Creator's and Saviour's gospel to mankind; a volume bound in rose-leaves, clasped with violets, and by the beaks of humming-birds printed with peach-juice on the leaves of lilies.

Herman Melville
Love, Rose, Bird
Herman Melville (1971). “Pierre, Or The Ambiguities: Volume Seven, Scholarly Edition”, p.34, Northwestern University Press

While nature thus very early and very abundantly feeds us, she is very late in tutoring us as to the proper methodization of our diet.

Herman Melville
Wisdom, Nature, Learning
Herman Melville (2016). “Pierre; or The Ambiguities”, p.326, Herman Melville

But Captain Vere was now again motionless, standing absorbed in thought. Again starting, he vehemently exclaimed, "Struck dead by an angel of God! Yet that angel must hang!

Herman Melville
Angel, Captains, Starting
Herman Melville (2009). “Billy Budd, Sailor and Selected Tales”, p.292, OUP Oxford

Personal prudence, even when dictated by quite other than selfish considerations, surely is no special virtue in a military man; while an excessive love of glory, impassioning a less burning impulse, the honest sense of duty, is the first.

Herman Melville
Selfish, Military, Men
Herman Melville (1966). “Billy Budd”, p.14, Hayes Barton Press

Who in the rainbow can draw the line where the violet tint ends and the orange tint begins?

Herman Melville
Nature, Orange, Rainbow
1891 Billy Budd, Foretopman (first published1924), ch.21.

Lo! ye believers in gods all goodness, and in man all ill, lo you! see the omniscient gods oblivious of suffering man; and man, though idiotic, and knowing not what he does, yet full of the sweet things of love and gratitude.

Herman Melville
Sweet, Gratitude, Men
Herman Melville (2016). “Moby-Dick: Or, the Whale”, p.413, Cosimo, Inc.

It is not for man to follow the trail of truth too far, since by so doing he entirely loses the directing compass of his mind.

Herman Melville
Truth, Men, Mind
Herman Melville (2016). “The Ambiguities”, p.280, Herman Melville

To certain temperaments, especially when previously agitated by any deep feeling, there is perhaps nothing more exasperating, andwhich sooner explodes all self-command, than the coarse, jeering insolence of a porter, cabman, or hack-driver.

Herman Melville
Self, Feelings, Jeering
Herman Melville (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Herman Melville (Illustrated)”, p.2530, Delphi Classics

Nature has not implanted any power in man that was not meant to be exercised at times, though too often our powers have been abused.

Herman Melville
Men, Were Not Meant To Be, Unendurable
Herman Melville (1970). “White-jacket: Or, The World in a Man-of-war”, p.280, Northwestern University Press

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