Herman Melville Quotes - Page 2

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• Hope is the struggle of the soul, breaking loose from what is perishable, and attesting her eternity.

  Herman Melville

  Hope, Struggle, Soul

  33 Copy quote

• The path to my fixed purpose is laid with iron rails whereon my soul is grooved to run

  Herman Melville

  Running, Iron, Soul

  Herman Melville (1892). “Moby Dick”, p.161

  14 Copy quote

• The easiest way of life is the best.

  Herman Melville

  Way, Life Is

  Herman Melville (2016). “Bartleby, The Scrivener”, p.3, Herman Melville

  4 Copy quote

• Truth uncompromisingly told will always have its ragged edges.

  Herman Melville

  Literature, Edges, Ragged

  Herman Melville (2009). “Billy Budd, Sailor and Selected Tales”, p.312, OUP Oxford

  10 Copy quote

• We are only what we are; not what we would be; nor every thing we hope for. We are but a step in a scale, that reaches further above us than below.

  Herman Melville

  Perfection, Humanity, Would Be

  Herman Melville (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Herman Melville (Illustrated)”, p.1031, Delphi Classics

  22 Copy quote

• Whatever my fate, I'll go to it laughing.

  Herman Melville

  Fate, Laughing

  16 Copy quote

• It is not down in any map; true places never are.

  Herman Melville

  Nature, Travel, Home

  Herman Melville (1892). “Moby Dick”, p.57

  56 Copy quote

• You know nothing till you know all; which is the reason we never know any thing.

  Herman Melville

  Knowledge, Reason, Knows

  Herman Melville (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Herman Melville (Illustrated)”, p.1221, Delphi Classics

  25 Copy quote

• 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

  Art, Lying, White

  Herman Melville, Harrison Hayford, Hershel Parker, G. Thomas Tanselle (1988). “Moby Dick, Or The Whale: Volume 6, Scholarly Edition”, p.613, Northwestern University Press

  39 Copy quote

• There is no quality in this world that is not what it is merely by contrast. Nothing exists in itself.

  Herman Melville

  Reality, Quality, World

  Herman Melville (1892). “Moby Dick”, p.55

  38 Copy quote

• The sweetest joys of life grow in the very jaws of its perils.

  Herman Melville

  Joy, Danger, Peril

  Herman Melville (2015). “Pierre or The Ambiguities: Works of Melville”, p.71, 谷月社

  8 Copy quote

• A smile is the chosen vehicle of all ambiguities.

  Herman Melville

  Happiness, Smile, Laughter

  Herman Melville (1963). “Works”

  26 Copy quote

• He knows himself, and all that's in him, who knows adversity.

  Herman Melville

  Knowledge, Adversity, Self

  Herman Melville (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Herman Melville (Illustrated)”, p.1231, Delphi Classics

  6 Copy quote

• Art is the objectification of feeling.

  Herman Melville

  Inspirational, Art, Feelings

  "Mind, An Essay on Human Feeling,". Book by Susanne Katherina Langer, vol. 1, pt. 2, ch. 4, 1967.

  29 Copy quote

• All experience teaches that, whenever there is a great national establishment, employing large numbers of officials, the public must be reconciled to support many incompetent men; for such is the favoritism and nepotism always prevailing in the purlieus of these establishments, that some incompetent persons are always admitted, to the exclusion of many of the worthy.

  Herman Melville

  Men, Numbers, Support

  Herman Melville (1850). “White-jacket: or, The world in a man-of-war”, p.118

  103 Copy quote

• Real strength never impairs beauty or harmony, but it often bestows it, and in everything imposingly beautiful, strength has much to do with the magic.

  Herman Melville

  Inspirational, Strength, Beautiful

  Herman Melville (1892). “Moby Dick”, p.354

  6 Copy quote

• Those of us who always abhorred slavery as an atheistical iniquity, gladly we join in the exulting chorus of humanity over its downfall.

  Herman Melville

  Evil, Humanity, Atheism

  Herman Melville (1866). “Battle-pieces and aspects of the war [poems].”, p.268

  5 Copy quote

• Our souls belong to our bodies, not our bodies to our souls.

  Herman Melville

  Soul, Body

  Herman Melville (1855). “Mardi: And a Voyage Thither”, p.212

  5 Copy quote

• At my years, and with my disposition, or rather, constitution, one gets to care less and less for everything except downright goodfeeling. Life is so short, and so ridiculous and irrational (from a certain point of view) that one knows not what to make of it, unless--well, finish the sentence for yourself.

  Herman Melville

  Life, Views, Years

  Herman Melville, Lynn Horth (1993). “Correspondence”, p.454, Northwestern University Press

  10 Copy quote

• A ship is a bit of terra firma cut off from the main; it is a state in itself; and the captain is its king.

  Herman Melville

  Kings, Cutting, Sea

  Herman Melville (1970). “White-jacket: Or, The World in a Man-of-war”, p.23, Northwestern University Press

  4 Copy quote

• Nature is nobody's ally.

  Herman Melville

  Nature, Allies

  Herman Melville, Douglas Robillard (2000). “The Poems of Herman Melville”, p.63, Kent State University Press

  35 Copy quote

• ...The silent reminiscence of hardships departed, is sweeter than the presence of delight.

  Herman Melville

  Gratitude, Departed, Hardship

  Herman Melville (1863). “Redburn: His First Voyage: Being the Sailor-boy Confessions and Reminiscences O the Son-of-a-gentleman, in the Merchant Service”, p.376

  4 Copy quote

• If you can get nothing better out of the world, get a good dinner out of it, at least.

  Herman Melville

  World, Dinner, Ifs

  Herman Melville (1892). “Moby Dick”, p.420

  20 Copy quote

• Amity itself can only be maintained by reciprocal respect, and true friends are punctilious equals.

  Herman Melville

  True Friend, Relation, Reciprocal

  Herman Melville (2006). “Selected Poems (Melville, Herman)”, p.138, Penguin

  7 Copy quote

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

  Herman Melville

  Quality, Gone, Literature

  7 Copy quote

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