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Herman Melville
114 quotes
“It will be a strange sort of book, tho', I fear; blubber is blubber you know; tho' you may get oil out of it, the poetry runs as hard as sap from a frozen maple tree; — & to cook the thing up, one must needs throw in a little fancy, which from the nature of the thing, must be ungainly as the gambols of the whales themselves. Yet I mean to give the truth of the thing, spite of this.”
Herman Melville (1819–1891) first seen 1850 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On Moby-Dick, in a letter to Richard Henry Dana, Jr. (1 May 1850)
“Not one man in five cycles, who is wise, will expect appreciative recognition from his fellows, or any one of them. Appreciation! Recognition! Is love appreciated? Why, ever since Adam, who has got to the meaning of this great allegory — the world? Then we pigmies must be content to have our paper allegories but ill comprehended.”
Herman Melville (1819–1891) first seen 1851 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Nathaniel Hawthorne (July 1851); in Rose Hawthorne Lathrop, Memories of Hawthorne (1897), p. 157
“Whence came you, Hawthorne? By what right do you drink from my flagon of life? And when I put it to my lips — lo, they are yours and not mine. I feel that the Godhead is broken up like the bread at the Supper, and that we are the pieces. Hence this infinite fraternity of feeling. Now, sympathising with the paper, my angel turns over another leaf. You did not care a penny for the book. But, now and then as you read, you understood the pervading thought that impelled the book — and that you praised. Was it not so? You were archangel enough to praise the imperfect body, and embrace the soul.”
Herman Melville (1819–1891) first seen 1851 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Nathaniel Hawthorne (July 1851); in Rose Hawthorne Lathrop, Memories of Hawthorne (1897), p. 158
“The reason the mass of men fear God, and at bottom dislike Him, is because they rather distrust His heart, and fancy Him all brain like a watch. (You perceive I employ a capital initial in the pronoun referring to the Deity; don't you think there is a slight dash of flunkeyism in that usage?)”
Herman Melville (1819–1891) first seen 1851 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Nathaniel Hawthorne (June 1, 1851)
“Truth is ever incoherent, and when the big hearts strike together, the concussion is a little stunning.”
Herman Melville (1819–1891) first seen 1851 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Nathaniel Hawthorne (July 1851); in Rose Hawthorne Lathrop, Memories of Hawthorne (1897), p. 158
“I am heartily sorry I ever wrote anything about you — it was paltry. Lord, when shall we be done growing? As long as we have anything more to do, we have done nothing. So, now, let us add Moby-Dick to our blessing, and step from that. Leviathan is not the biggest fish; — I have heard of Krakens.”
Herman Melville (1819–1891) first seen 1851 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Nathaniel Hawthorne (July 1851); in Rose Hawthorne Lathrop, Memories of Hawthorne (1897), p. 158
“It is — or seems to be — a wise sort of thing, to realise that all that happens to a man in this life is only by way of joke, especially his misfortunes, if he have them. And it is also worth bearing in mind, that the joke is passed round pretty liberally & impartially, so that not very many are entitled to fancy that they in particular are getting the worst of it.”
Herman Melville (1819–1891) first seen 1851 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Samuel Savage (24 August 1851); in Lynn Horth, ed., The Writings of Herman Melville: The Northwestern-Newberry Edition, vol. 14 (1993), p. 203
“If some books are deemed most baneful and their sale forbid, how, then, with deadlier facts, not dreams of doting men? Those whom books will hurt will not be proof against events. Events, not books, should be forbid.”
Herman Melville (1819–1891) first seen 1854 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Encantadas (1854), Sketch Eighth
“Of all the preposterous assumptions of humanity over humanity, nothing exceeds most of the criticisms made on the habits of the poor by the well-housed, well-warmed, and well-fed.”
Herman Melville (1819–1891) first seen 1854 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Poor Man's Pudding and Rich Man's Crumbs (1854)
“Whoever is not in the possession of leisure can hardly be said to possess independence. They talk of the dignity of work. Bosh. True Work is the necessity of poor humanity's earthly condition. The dignity is in leisure. Besides, 99 hundreths of all the work done in the world is either foolish and unnecessary, or harmful and wicked.”
Herman Melville (1819–1891) first seen 1819 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Catherine G. Lansing (5 September 1877); in Jay Leyda, The Melville Log: A Documentary Life of Herman Melville, 1819-1891 (1951), vol. 2, p. 765
“In armies, navies, cities, or families, in nature herself, nothing more relaxes good order than misery.”
Herman Melville (1819–1891) first seen 1855 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Benito Cereno", in Putnam's Monthly (October 1855), p. 356
“All dies! and not alone The aspiring trees and men and grass; The poets’ forms of beauty pass, And noblest deeds they are undone, Even truth itself decays, and lo, From truth’s sad ashes pain and falsehood grow.”
Herman Melville (1819–1891) said by 1891 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Lake", in Lewis Mumford, Herman Melville (1929), p. 350
“The French have ever plumed themselves upon being the most humane and polished of nations.”
Herman Melville (1819–1891) said by 1891 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Were civilization itself to be estimated by some of its results, it would seem perhaps better for what we call the barbarous part of the world to remain unchanged.”
Herman Melville (1819–1891) said by 1891 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When the inhabitants of some sequestered island first descry the ‘big canoe’ of the European rolling through the blue waters towards their shores, they rush down to the beach in crowds, and with open arms stand ready to embrace the strangers. Fatal embrace! They fold to their bosoms the viper whose sting is destined to poison all their joys.”
Herman Melville (1819–1891) said by 1891 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Insensible as he is to a thousand wants, and removed from harassing cares, may not the savage be the happier man of the two?”
Herman Melville (1819–1891) said by 1891 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“‘Why, they are cannibals!’ said Toby on one occasion when I eulogized the tribe. ‘Granted,’ I replied, ‘but a more humane, gentlemanly and amiable set of epicures do not probably exist in the Pacific.’”
Herman Melville (1819–1891) said by 1891 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The fiend-like skill we display in the invention of all manner of death-dealing engines, the vindictiveness with which we carry on our wars, and the misery and desolation that follow in their train, are enough of themselves to distinguish the white civilized man as the most ferocious animal on the face of the earth.”
Herman Melville (1819–1891) said by 1891 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The term ‘Savage’ is, I conceive, often misapplied, and indeed, when I consider the vices, cruelties, and enormities of every kind that spring up in the tainted atmosphere of a feverish civilization, I am inclined to think that so far as the relative wickedness of the parties is concerned, four or five Marquesan Islanders sent to the United States as Missionaries might be quite as useful as an equal number of Americans despatched to the Islands in a similar capacity.”
Herman Melville (1819–1891) said by 1891 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Strange as it may seem, there is nothing in which a young and beautiful female appears to more advantage than in the act of smoking. How captivating is a Peruvian lady, swinging in her gaily-woven hammock of grass, extended between two orange-trees, and inhaling the fragrance of a choice cigarro!”
Herman Melville (1819–1891) said by 1891 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Aye, paddle away, brave chieftain, to the land of spirits! To the material eye thou makest but little progress; but with the eye of faith, I see thy canoe cleaving the bright waves, which die away on those dimly looming shores of Paradise. This strange superstition affords another evidence of the fact, that however ignorant man may be, he still feels within him his immortal spirit yearning, after the unknown future.”
Herman Melville (1819–1891) said by 1891 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“At the Sandwich Islands, Kaahumanu, the gigantic old dowager queen — a woman of nearly four hundred pounds weight, and who is said to be still living at Mowee — was accustomed, in some of her terrific gusts of temper, to snatch up an ordinary sized man who had offended her, and snap his spine across her knee. Incredible as this may seem, it is a fact. While at Lahainaluna — the residence of this monstrous Jezebel — a humpbacked wretch was pointed out to me, who, some twenty-five years previously, had had the vertebrae of his backbone very seriously discomposed by his gentle mistress.”
Herman Melville (1819–1891) said by 1891 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“People seem to have a great love for names; for to know a great many names, seems to look like knowing a good many things; though I should not be surprised, if there were a great many more names than things in the world.”
Herman Melville (1819–1891) said by 1891 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You can not spill a drop of American blood without spilling the blood of the whole world. . . . We are not a narrow tribe of men, with a bigoted Hebrew nationality — whose blood has been debased in the attempt to ennoble it, by maintaining an exclusive succession among ourselves. No: our blood is as the flood of the Amazon, made up of a thousand noble currents all pouring into one. We are not a nation, so much as a world; for unless we may claim all the world for our sire, like Melchisedec, we are without father or mother.”
Herman Melville (1819–1891) said by 1891 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If they can get here, they have God's right to come; though they bring all Ireland and her miseries with them. For the whole world is the patrimony of the whole world; there is no telling who does not own a stone in the Great Wall of China.”
Herman Melville (1819–1891) said by 1891 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The scene of suffering is a scene of joy when the suffering is past; and the silent reminiscence of hardships departed, is sweeter than the presence of delight.”
Herman Melville (1819–1891) said by 1891 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It was not a very white jacket, but white enough, in all conscience, as the sequel will show. The way I came by it was this...”
Herman Melville (1819–1891) said by 1891 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Many sensible things banished from high life find an asylum among the mob.”
Herman Melville (1819–1891) said by 1891 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 (1819–1891) said by 1891 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Sailor or landsman, there is some sort of Cape Horn for all. Boys! beware of it; prepare for it in time. Greybeards! thank God it is passed.”
Herman Melville (1819–1891) said by 1891 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In time of peril, like the needle to the loadstone, obedience, irrespective of rank, generally flies to him who is best fitted to command.”
Herman Melville (1819–1891) said by 1891 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We Americans are the peculiar, chosen people — the Israel of our time; we bear the ark of the liberties of the world.”
Herman Melville (1819–1891) said by 1891 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Though public libraries have an imposing air, and doubtless contain invaluable volumes, yet, somehow, the books that prove most agreeable, grateful, and companionable, are those we pick up by chance here and there; those which seem put into our hands by Providence; those which pretend to little, but abound in much.”
Herman Melville (1819–1891) said by 1891 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A man of true science...uses but few hard words, and those only when none other will answer his purpose; whereas the smatterer in science... thinks, that by mouthing hard words, he proves that he understands hard things.”
Herman Melville (1819–1891) said by 1891 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Are there no Moravians in the Moon, that not a missionary has yet visited this poor pagan planet of ours, to civilize civilization and christianize Christendom?”
Herman Melville (1819–1891) said by 1891 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I had now been on board the frigate upward of a year, and remained unscourged; the ship was homeward-bound, and in a few weeks, at most, I would be a free man. And now, after making a hermit of myself in some things, in order to avoid the possibility of the scourge, here it was hanging over me for a thing utterly unforeseen, for a crime of which I was as utterly innocent. But all that was as naught.”
Herman Melville (1819–1891) said by 1891 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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. The privilege, inborn and inalienable, that every man has of dying himself, and inflicting death upon another, was not given to us without a purpose. These are the last resources of an insulted and unendurable existence.”
Herman Melville (1819–1891) said by 1891 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I let nothing slip, however small; and feel myself actuated by the same motive which has prompted many worthy old chroniclers, to set down the merest trifles concerning things that are destined to pass away entirely from the earth, and which, if not preserved in the nick of time, must infallibly perish from the memories of man. Who knows that this humble narrative may not hereafter prove the history of an obsolete barbarism? Who knows that, when men-of-war shall be no more, "White-Jacket" may not be quoted to show to the people in the Millennium what a man-of-war was? God hasten the time!”
Herman Melville (1819–1891) said by 1891 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Courage is the most common and vulgar of the virtues; the only one shared with us by the beasts of the field; the one most apt, by excess, to run into viciousness.”
Herman Melville (1819–1891) said by 1891 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The worst of our evils we blindly inflict upon ourselves; our officers cannot remove them, even if they would. From the last ills no being can save another; therein each man must be his own saviour. For the rest, whatever befall us, let us never train our murderous guns inboard; let us not mutiny with bloody pikes in our hands. Our Lord High Admiral will yet interpose; and though long ages should elapse, and leave our wrongs unredressed, yet, shipmates and world-mates! let us never forget, that, Whoever afflict us, whatever surround, Life is a voyage that's homeward-bound!”
Herman Melville (1819–1891) said by 1891 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Would that all excellent books were foundlings, without father or mother, that so it might be, we could glorify them, without including their ostensible authors. Nor would any true man take exception to this; — least of all, he who writes, — "When the Artist rises high enough to achieve the Beautiful, the symbol by which he makes it perceptible to mortal senses becomes of little value in his eyes, while his spirit possesses itself in the enjoyment of the reality.”
Herman Melville (1819–1891) said by 1891 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In this world of lies, Truth is forced to fly like a scared white doe in the woodlands; and only by cunning glimpses will she reveal herself, as in Shakespeare and other masters of the great Art of Telling the Truth, — even though it be covertly, and by snatches.”
Herman Melville (1819–1891) said by 1891 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Since at least 1954 this has also been published at times as "Truth is forced to fly like a sacred white doe…", apparently a typographical error.
“It is better to fail in originality, than to succeed in imitation. He who has never failed somewhere, that man can not be great. Failure is the true test of greatness. And if it be said, that continual success is a proof that a man wisely knows his powers, — it is only to be added, that, in that case, he knows them to be small. Let us believe it, then, once for all, that there is no hope for us in these smooth pleasing writers that know their powers.”
Herman Melville (1819–1891) said by 1891 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Certain it is, however, that this great power of blackness in him derives its force from its appeals to that Calvinistic sense of Innate Depravity and Original Sin, from whose visitations, in some shape or other, no deeply thinking mind is always and wholly free. For, in certain moods, no man can weigh this world, without throwing in something, somehow like Original Sin, to strike the uneven balance.”
Herman Melville (1819–1891) said by 1891 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You must have plenty of sea-room to tell the truth in.”
Herman Melville (1819–1891) said by 1891 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Genius, all over the world, stands hand in hand, and one shock of recognition runs the whole circle round.”
Herman Melville (1819–1891) said by 1891 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I found that but to glean after this man, is better than to be in at the harvest of others.”
Herman Melville (1819–1891) said by 1891 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is hard to be finite upon an infinite subject, and all subjects are infinite.”
Herman Melville (1819–1891) said by 1891 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Call me Ishmael.”
Herman Melville (1819–1891) said by 1891 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I have no objection to any person’s religion, be it what it may, so long as that person does not kill or insult any other person, because that other person don’t believe it also. But when a man’s religion becomes really frantic; when it is a positive torment to him; and, in fine, makes this earth of ours an uncomfortable inn to lodge in; then I think it high time to take that individual aside and argue the point with him.”
Herman Melville (1819–1891) said by 1891 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source