Filter quotes by topic
Famous Herman Melville Quotes
“A smile is the chosen vehicle of all ambiguities.”
“Truth is in things, and not in words.”
“Truth uncompromisingly told will always have its ragged edges.”
“He who has never failed somewhere, that man can not be great.”
“To be hated cordially, is only a left-handed compliment.”
“At sea a fellow comes out. Salt water is like wine, in that respect.”
“It is impossible to talk or to write without apparently throwing oneself helplessly open.”
“There are hardly five critics in America; and several of them are asleep.”
“There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness is the true method.”
“There is all of the difference in the world between paying and being paid.”
“There is nothing namable but that some men will, or undertake to, do it for pay.”
“It is not down in any map; true places never are.”
“Know, thou, that the lines that live are turned out of a furrowed brow.”
“The march of conquest through wild provinces, may be the march of Mind; but not the march of Love.”
“To be called one thing, is oftentimes to be another.”
“Where do murderers go, man! Who's to doom, when the judge himself is dragged to the bar?”
“I have written a wicked book, and feel spotless as the lamb.”
“At length I fell asleep, with the volume in my hand; and never slept so sound before”
“I try all things, I achieve what I can.”
“Talk not to me of blasphemy, man; I'd strike the sun if it insulted me.”
“The Past is the textbook of tyrants; the Future is the Bible of the Free.”
“A noble craft, but somehow a most melancholy! All noble things are touched with that.”