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Herman Melville

Herman Melville Quotes

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Famous Herman Melville Quotes

“The friendship of fine-hearted, generous boys, nurtured amid the romance-engendering comforts and elegancies of life, sometimes transcends the bounds of mere boyishness, and revels for a while in the empyrean of a love which only comes short, by one degree, of the sweetest sentiment entertained between the sexes.”

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Book:Pierre; or The Ambiguities
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“That nameless and infinitely delicate aroma of inexpressible tenderness and attentiveness which, in every refined and honorable attachment, is contemporary with the courtship, and precedes the final banns and the rite; but which, like the bouquet of the costliest German wines, too often evaporates upon pouring love out to drink, in the disenchanting glasses of the matrimonial days and nights.”

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Author:Herman Melville
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“Love's secrets, being mysteries, ever pertain to the transcendent and the infinite; and so they are as airy bridges, by which ourfurther shadows pass over into the regions of the golden mists and exhalations; whence all poetical, lovely thoughts are engendered, and drop into us, as though pearls should drop from rainbows.”

LoveShouldSecretMysteryShadowInfiniteLovelyGoldenBridgesRegionsRainbowPearlsMistTranscendentAiry
Book:Delphi Complete Works of Herman Melville (Illustrated)
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“The pleasure of leaving home, care-free, with no concern but to enjoy, has also as a pendant the pleasure of coming back to the old hearthstone, the home to which, however traveled, the heart still fondly turns, ignoring the burden of its anxieties and cares.”

HeartStillsHomeCareTurnsEnjoyPleasureTravelAnxietyConcernLeavingBurdenTraveledComing BackLeaving HomePendants
Book:Piazza Tales and Other Prose Pieces, 1839-1860: Volume Nine, Scholarly Edition
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“In the operative opinion of the world, he who is already fully provided with what is necessary for him, that man shall have more;while he who is deplorably destitute of the same, he shall have taken away from him even that which he hath. Yet the world vows it is a very plain, downright matter-of-fact, plodding, humane sort of world.”

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Book:Pierre; or The Ambiguities
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“Those peculiar social sensibilities nourished by our own peculiar political principles, while they enhance the true dignity of a prosperous American, do but minister to the added wretchedness of the unfortunate; first, by prohibiting their acceptance of what little random relief charity may offer; and, second, by furnishing them with the keenest appreciation of the smarting distinction between their ideal of universal equality and their grind-stone experience of the practical misery and infamy of poverty.”

FirstsMayLittlesPoliticalSocialPrinciplesPovertyAcceptanceOffersIdealsDignityStonesUniversalMiseryCharityAppreciationPracticalsMinistersDistinctionReliefPeculiarUnfortunateSensibilityProsperousGrindAffluenceWretchednessInfamy
Book:The Encantadas and Other Stories
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“A gentleman of Typee can bring up a numerous family of children and give them all a highly respectable cannibal education, with infinitely less toil and anxiety than he expends in the simple process of striking a light; whilst a poor European artisan, who through the instrumentality of a lucifer performs the same operation in one second, is put to his wits' end to provide for his starving offspring that food which the children of a Polynesian father, without troubling their parent, pluck from the branches of every tree around them.”

GivingChildrenEndsLightFatherProcessParentSimplePoorProgressTreeAnxietyWitOperationsGentlemanBranchesToilStarvingRespectableOffspringPluckLuciferCannibalArtisansPolynesiansWits End
Book:Typee: A Romance of the South Seas (Illustrated & Annotated Edition)
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“As a man-of-war that sails through the sea, so this earth that sails through the air. We mortals are all on board a fast-sailing,never-sinking world-frigate, of which God was the shipwright; and she is but one craft in a Milky-Way fleet, of which God is the Lord High Admiral.”

MenWorldWayWarEarthLordAirSeaCraftsMortalsBoardsSailSailingSinkingMilky WayAdmiral
Book:White-jacket; Or, The World in the Man-of-war
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“When we affect to condemn savages, we should remember that by doing so we asperse our own progenitors; for they were savages also.Who can swear that among the naked British barbarians sent to Rome to be stared at more than 1500 years ago, the ancestor of Bacon might not have been found?--Why, among the very Thugs of India, or the bloody Dyaks of Borneo, exists the germ of all that is intellectually elevated and grand. We are all of us--Anglo-Saxons, Dyaks and Indians--sprung from one head and made in one image.”

ShouldYearsHas BeensMadeMightRememberFoundCivilizationYears AgoIndiaBritishToleranceNakedRomeAncestorSwearBloodySavagesBarbariansGermsBarbarismThugSprungAnglo SaxonBorneo
Author:Herman Melville
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“The result of civilization, at the Sandwich Islands and elsewhere, is found productive to the civilizers, destructive to the civilizees. It is said to be compensation--a very philosophical word; but it appears to be very much on the principle of the old game, "You lose, I win": good philosophy for the winner.”

SaidPhilosophyFoundGamesWinningLosesResultsPrinciplesCivilizationPhilosophicalWinnerIslandsDestructiveProductiveElsewhereColonialismCompensationSandwichesGood Philosophy
Author:Herman Melville
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“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 vipers whose sting is destined to poison all their joys; and the instinctive feeling of love within their breasts is soon converted into the bitterest hate.”

FirstsFeelingsBigsJoyHateWaterReadyArmsCivilizationBlueEmbraceCrowdsStrangerBetrayalBeachIslandsPoisonBreastsShoreRollingDestinedFoldsBosomsOpen ArmsVipersBlue Water
Book:The Complete Works of Herman Melville: Adventure Classics, Sea Tales, Philosophical Works, Short Stories, Poetry & Essays: Moby-Dick, Typee, Omoo, Redburn, White-Jacket, Pierre, Israel Potter, The Piazza Tales, John Marr and Other Sailors…
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“Civilization does not engross all the virtues of humanity: she has not even her full share of them. They flourish in greater abundance and attain greater strength among many barbarous people. The hospitality of the wild Arab, the courage of the North American Indian, and the faithful friendships of some of the Polynesian nations, far surpass any thing of a similar kind among the polished communities of Europe.”

PeopleKindDoeHumanityNationsCommunityVirtueGreaterShareCivilizationEuropeIndianFaithfulAbundanceHospitalityPolishedAmerican IndianPolynesians
Book:Typee: A Romance of the South Seas (Illustrated & Annotated Edition)
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“The sailor is frankness, the landsman is finesse. Life is not a game with the sailor, demanding the long head--no intricate game of chess where few moves are made in straight-forwardness and ends are attained by indirection, an oblique, tedious, barren game hardly worth that poor candle burnt out in playing it.”

LongMadeEndsMovingLife IsGamesPoorChessCandleSailorTediousBarrenIntricateCandorFranknessFinesseBurnt Out
Book:Billy Budd, Sailor and Selected Tales
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