Herman Melville Quotes

"A man thinks that by mouthing hard words he understands hard things."
-Herman Melville in Language quotes.

"Toward the accomplishment of an aim, which in wantonness of atrocity would seem to partake of the insane, he will direct a cool judgement, sagacious and sound. These men are madmen, and of the most dangerous sort."
-Herman Melville

"Were this world an endless pain, and by sailing eastward we could forever reach new distances, and discover sights more sweet and strange than any Cyclades or Islands of King Solomon, then there were promise in the voyage."
-Herman Melville

"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."
-Herman Melville in Health quotes.

"If you can get nothing better out of the world, get a good dinner out of it, at least."
-Herman Melville

"We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men; and among those fibers, as sympathetic threads, our actions run as causes, and they come back to us as effects."
-Herman Melville

"To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme. No great and enduring volume can ever be written on the flea, though many there be that have tried it."
-Herman Melville in Writing quotes.

"Art is the objectification of feeling."
-Herman Melville in Art quotes.

"Life's a voyage that's homeward bound."
-Herman Melville in Home quotes.

"He who has never failed somewhere. . . that man can not be great."
-Herman Melville

"It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation."
-Herman Melville

"To the last I grapple with thee; from hell's heart I stab at thee; for hate's sake I spit my last breath at thee."
-Herman Melville

"Let us speak, though we show all our faults and weaknesses, -for it is a sign of strength to be weak, to know it, and out with it - not in a set way and ostentatiously, though, but incidentally and without premeditation."
-Herman Melville

"Men may seem detestable as joint stock-companies and nations; knaves, fools, and murderers there may be; men may have mean and meagre faces; but man, in the ideal, is so noble and so sparkling, such a grand and glowing creature, that over any ignominious blemish in him all his fellows should run to throw their costliest robes."
-Herman Melville

"When beholding the tranquil beauty and brilliancy of the ocean's skin, one forgets the tiger heart that pants beneath it; and would not willingly remember that this velvet paw but conceals a remorseless fang."
-Herman Melville

"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

"Is there some principal of nature which states that we never know the quality of what we have until it is gone?"
-Herman Melville

"Hope is the struggle of the soul, breaking loose from what is perishable, and attesting her eternity."
-Herman Melville in Hope quotes.

"I am madness maddened! That wild madness that's only calm to comprehend itself!"
-Herman Melville

"From without, no wonderful effect is wrought within ourselves, unless some interior, responding wonder meets it."
-Herman Melville

"Where does the violet tint end and the orange tint begins? Distinctly we see the difference of the colors, but where exactly does the one first blending enter into the other. So with sanity and insanity."
-Herman Melville