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Herman Melville

114 quotes

“Old age is always wakeful; as if, the longer linked with life, the less man has to do with aught that looks like death.”
Herman Melville (1819–1891) said by 1891 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“All visible objects, man, are but as pasteboard masks. But in each event — in the living act, the undoubted deed — there, some unknown but still reasoning thing puts forth the mouldings of its features from behind the unreasoning mask.”
Herman Melville (1819–1891) said by 1891 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The drama's done. Why then here does any one step forth? — Because one did survive the wreck.”
Herman Melville (1819–1891) said by 1891 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There are some strange summer mornings in the country, when he who is but a sojourner from the city shall early walk forth into the fields, and be wonder-smitten with the trance-like aspect of the green and golden world. Not a flower stirs; the trees forget to wave; the grass itself seems to have ceased to grow; and all Nature, as if suddenly become conscious of her own profound mystery, and feeling no refuge from it but silence, sinks into this wonderful and indescribable repose.”
Herman Melville (1819–1891) said by 1891 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Thou hast evoked in me profounder spells than the evoking one, thou face! For me, thou hast uncovered one infinite, dumb, beseeching countenance of mystery, underlying all the surfaces of visible time and space.”
Herman Melville (1819–1891) said by 1891 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 (1819–1891) said by 1891 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“What we take to be our strongest tower of delight, only stands at the caprice of the minutest event — the falling of a leaf, the hearing of a voice, or the receipt of one little bit of paper scratched over with a few small characters by a sharpened feather.”
Herman Melville (1819–1891) said by 1891 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“One trembles to think of that mysterious thing in the soul, which seems to acknowledge no human jurisdiction, but in spite of the individual's own innocent self, will still dream horrid dreams, and mutter unmentionable thoughts.”
Herman Melville (1819–1891) said by 1891 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A smile is the chosen vehicle of all ambiguities.”
Herman Melville (1819–1891) said by 1891 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“All Profound things, and emotions of things are preceded and attended by Silence.”
Herman Melville (1819–1891) said by 1891 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Silence is the general consecration of the universe. Silence is the invisible laying on of the Divine Pontiff's hands upon the world. Silence is at once the most harmless and the most awful thing in all nature. It speaks of the Reserved Forces of Fate. Silence is the only Voice of our God.”
Herman Melville (1819–1891) said by 1891 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There is no faith, and no stoicism, and no philosophy, that a mortal man can possibly evoke, which will stand the final test of a real impassioned onset of Life and Passion upon him. . . . Faith and philosophy are air, but events are brass.”
Herman Melville (1819–1891) said by 1891 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“His was the scorn which thinks it not worth the while to be scornful. Those he most scorned, never knew it.”
Herman Melville (1819–1891) said by 1891 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 (1819–1891) said by 1891 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“At present I would prefer not to be a little reasonable," was his mildly cadaverous reply.”
Herman Melville (1819–1891) said by 1891 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Nothing so aggravates an earnest person as a passive resistance.”
Herman Melville (1819–1891) said by 1891 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 (1819–1891) said by 1891 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And here Bartleby makes his home, sole spectator of a solitude which he has seen all populous — a sort of innocent and transformed Marius brooding among the ruins of Carthage!”
Herman Melville (1819–1891) said by 1891 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I would prefer not to." (A line spoken repeatedly by Bartleby)”
Herman Melville (1819–1891) said by 1891 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Well, there is sorrow in the world, but goodness too; and goodness that is not greenness, either, no more than sorrow is.”
Herman Melville (1819–1891) said by 1891 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“With shouts the torrents down the gorges go, And storms are formed behind the storm we feel: The hemlock shakes in the rafter, the oak in the driving keel.”
Herman Melville (1819–1891) said by 1891 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The poor old Past, The Future's slave, She drudged through pain and crime To bring about the blissful Prime, Then — perished. There's a grave!”
Herman Melville (1819–1891) said by 1891 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“All wars are boyish, and are fought by boys.”
Herman Melville (1819–1891) said by 1891 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“At the height of their madness The night winds pause, Recollecting themselves; But no lull in these wars.”
Herman Melville (1819–1891) said by 1891 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Youth is the time when hearts are large, And stirring wars Appeal to the spirit which appeals in turn To the blade it draws.”
Herman Melville (1819–1891) said by 1891 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“What troops Of generous boys in happiness thus bred — Saturnians through life's Tempe led, Went from the North and came from the South, With golden mottoes in the mouth, To lie down midway on a bloody bed.”
Herman Melville (1819–1891) said by 1891 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Wag the world how it will, Leaves must be green in spring.”
Herman Melville (1819–1891) said by 1891 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 (1819–1891) said by 1891 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There seems no reason why patriotism and narrowness should go together, or why intellectual impartiality should be confounded with political trimming, or why serviceable truth should keep cloistered be a cause not partisan. Yet the work of Reconstruction, if admitted to be feasible at all, demands little but common sense and Christian charity. Little but these? These are much.”
Herman Melville (1819–1891) said by 1891 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Patriotism is not baseness, neither is it inhumanity.”
Herman Melville (1819–1891) said by 1891 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Zeal is not of necessity religion, neither is it always of the same essence with poetry or patriotism.”
Herman Melville (1819–1891) said by 1891 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Benevolence and policy — Christianity and Machiavelli — dissuade from penal severities toward the subdued. Abstinence here is as obligatory as considerate care for our unfortunate fellow-men late in bonds, and, if observed, would equally prove to be wise forecast. The great qualities of the South, those attested in the War, we can perilously alienate, or we may make them nationally available at need.”
Herman Melville (1819–1891) said by 1891 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“For the future of the freed slaves we may well be concerned; but the future of the whole country, involving the future of the blacks, urges a paramount claim upon our anxiety. Effective benignity, like the Nile, is not narrow in its bounty, and true policy is always broad.”
Herman Melville (1819–1891) said by 1891 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Amity itself can only be maintained by reciprocal respect, and true friends are punctilious equals.”
Herman Melville (1819–1891) said by 1891 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Instinct and study; love and hate; Audacity — reverence. These must mate, And fuse with Jacob’s mystic heart, To wrestle with the angel — Art.”
Herman Melville (1819–1891) said by 1891 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Ah, might we read in America’s signs The Age restored of the Antonines.”
Herman Melville (1819–1891) said by 1891 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Gems and jewels let them heap— Wax sumptuous as the Sophi: For me, to grapple from Art’s deep One dripping trophy!”
Herman Melville (1819–1891) said by 1891 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Indolence is heaven’s ally here, And energy the child of hell: The Good Man pouring from his pitcher clear But brims the poisoned well.”
Herman Melville (1819–1891) said by 1891 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“But are sailors, frequenters of fiddlers' greens, without vices? No; but less often than with landsmen do their vices, so called, partake of crookedness of heart, seeming less to proceed from viciousness than exuberance of vitality after long constraint: frank manifestations in accordance with natural law.”
Herman Melville (1819–1891) said by 1891 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Struck dead by an angel of God! Yet the angel must hang!”
Herman Melville (1819–1891) said by 1891 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Who in the rainbow can draw the line where the violet tint ends and the orange tint begins? Distinctly we see the difference of the colors, but where exactly does the one first blendingly enter into the other? So with sanity and insanity. In pronounced cases there is no question about them. But in some supposed cases, in various degrees supposedly less pronounced, to draw the exact line of demarcation few will undertake tho' for a fee some professional experts will. There is nothing nameable but that some men will undertake to do it for pay.”
Herman Melville (1819–1891) said by 1891 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In the light of that martial code whereby it was formally to be judged, innocence and guilt personified in Claggart and Budd in effect changed places. In a legal view the apparent victim of the tragedy was he who had sought to victimize a man blameless; and the indisputable deed of the latter, navally regarded, constituted the most heinous of military crimes.”
Herman Melville (1819–1891) said by 1891 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Says a writer whom few know, "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. Much so with respect to other emergencies involving considerations both practical and moral, and when it is imperative promptly to act.”
Herman Melville (1819–1891) said by 1891 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In war-time on the field or in the fleet, a mortal punishment decreed by a drum-head court — on the field sometimes decreed by but a nod from the General — follows without delay on the heel of conviction without appeal.”
Herman Melville (1819–1891) said by 1891 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If possible, not to let the men so much as surmise that their officers anticipate aught amiss from them is the tacit rule in a military ship. And the more that some sort of trouble should really be apprehended the more do the officers keep that apprehension to themselves; tho' not the less unostentatious vigilance may be augmented. In the present instance the sentry placed over the prisoner had strict orders to let no one have communication with him but the Chaplain. And certain unobtrusive measures were taken absolutely to insure this point.”
Herman Melville (1819–1891) said by 1891 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Billy's agony, mainly proceeding from a generous young heart's virgin experience of the diabolical incarnate and effective in some men — the tension of that agony was over now.”
Herman Melville (1819–1891) said by 1891 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“At the penultimate moment, his words, his only ones, words wholly unobstructed in the utterance were these — "God bless Captain Vere!”
Herman Melville (1819–1891) said by 1891 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The symmetry of form attainable in pure fiction can not so readily be achieved in a narration essentially having less to do with fable than with fact. Truth uncompromisingly told will always have its ragged edges...”
Herman Melville (1819–1891) said by 1891 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“But me they’ll lash in hammock, drop me deep. Fathoms down, fathoms down, how I’ll dream fast asleep. I feel it stealing now. Sentry, are you there? Just ease these darbies at the wrist, And roll me over fair. I am sleepy, and the oozy weeds about me twist.”
Herman Melville (1819–1891) said by 1891 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Dolt & ass that I am I have lived more than 29 years, & until a few days ago, never made close acquaintance with the divine William. Ah, he's full of sermons-on-the-mount, and gentle, aye, almost as Jesus. I take such men to be inspired. I fancy that this moment Shakspeare in heaven ranks with Gabriel, Raphael and Michael. And if another Messiah ever comes twill be in Shakesper's person. — I am mad to think how minute a cause has prevented me hitherto from reading Shakspeare. But until now, every copy that was come-atable to me, happened to be in a vile small print unendurable to my eyes which are tender as young sparrows. But chancing to fall in with this glorious edition, I now exult in it, page after page.”
Herman Melville (1819–1891) first seen 1849 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Evert Augustus Duyckinck (24 February 1849); in Merrell R. Davis and William H. Gilman, eds., The Letters of Herman Melville (1960), p. 77