Quotes by Herman Melville

About Herman Melville:

Herman Melville is probably its heavy allusiveness, a reflection of his use of written sources. Melville's way of adapting what he read for his own new purposes, scholar Stanley T. Williams wrote, "was a transforming power comparable to Shakespeare's".
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Is it not curious, that so vast a being as the whale should see the world through so small an eye, and hear the thunder through an ear which is smaller than a hare's? But if his eyes were broad as the lens of Herschel's great telescope; and his ears ...

Herman Melville

There is all the different in the world between paying and being paid.

Herman Melville

Thought he, it's a wicked world in all meridians; I'll die a pagan.

Herman Melville

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 all this; and then turn to this green, gentle , and most d...

Herman Melville

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

Herman Melville

Circumambulate the city of a dreamy Sabbath afternoon. Go from Corlears Hook to Coenties Slip, and from thence, by Whitehall, northward. What do you see?—Posted like silent sentinels all around the town, stand thousands upon thousands of mortal men...

Herman Melville

how I wish I could fist a bit of old-fashioned beef in the fore-castle, as I used to when i was before the mast.

Herman Melville

Aye, aye, it must be so. I've oversailed him. How, got the start? Aye, he's chasing ME now; not I, HIM--that's bad

Herman Melville

[T]hen all collapsed, and the great shroud of the sea rolled on as it rolled five thousand years ago.

Herman Melville

Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever i find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet... I quietly take to the ...

Herman Melville

Old age is always wakeful; as if, the longer linked with life, the less man has to do with aught that looks like death. (moby dick chap 29 p123)

Herman Melville

So, when on one side you hoist in Locke's head, you go over that way; but now, on the other side, hoist in Kant's and you come back again; but in very poor plight. Thus, some minds for ever keep trimming boat. Oh, ye foolish! throw all these thunder-...

Herman Melville

And here, shipmates, is true and faithful repentance; not clamorous for pardon, but grateful for punishment.

Herman Melville

Better to sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunk Christian.

Herman Melville

For, thought Ahab, while even the highest earthly felicities ever have a certain unsignifying pettiness lurking in them, but, at bottom, all heartwoes, a mystic significance, and, in some men, an archangelic grandeur; so do their diligent tracings-ou...

Herman Melville

The classification of the constituents of a chaos, nothing less is here essayed.

Herman Melville

But vain to popularize profundities, and all truth is profound.

Herman Melville

Looking into his eyes, you seemed to see there the yet lingering images of those thousand-fold perils he had calmly confronted through life. A staid, steadfast man, whose life for the most part was a telling pantomime of action, and not a tame chapte...

Herman Melville

Queequeg was a native of Kokovoko, an island far away to the West and South. It is not down in any map; true places never are.

Herman Melville

It does seem to me, that herein we see the rare virtue of a strong individual vitality, and the rare virtue of thick walls, and the rare virtue of interior spaciousness. Oh, man! admire and model thyself after the whale! Do thou, too, remain warm amo...

Herman Melville

...the great floodgates of the wonder-world swung open...

Herman Melville

Author Bio

  • NameHerman Melville
  • DescriptionAmerican novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet
  • AliasesHermann Melville; Herman Melvill; HermanMelville
  • BornAugust 1, 1819
  • DiedSeptember 28, 1891
  • CountryUnited States Of America
  • ProfessionTeacher; Sailor; Lecturer; Poet; Writer; Novelist; Essayist