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Herman Melville

Herman Melville Quotes

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Famous Herman Melville Quotes

“Let us pray that the great historic tragedy of our time may not have been enacted without instructing our whole beloved country through terror and pity; and may fulfillment verify in the end those expectations which kindle the bards of Progress and Humanity.”

MayHas BeensWarEndsCountryWholeHumanityProgressPrayingExpectationsTragedyTerrorPityFulfillmentBelovedOur TimeHistoricKindlesVerifyBardsBeloved Country
Book:Battle-pieces and aspects of the war [poems].
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“Where is there such an one who has not a thousand times been struck with a sort of infidel idea, that whatever other worlds God may be Lord of, he is not the Lord of this; for else this world would seem to give the lie to Him; so utterly repugnant seem its ways to the instinctively known ways of Heaven.”

WorldWayGivingMayIdeasGodSeemsEarthLyingReligionHeavenKnownLordThis WorldThousandOther WorldsInfidel
Book:Pierre; or The Ambiguities
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“Books, gentlemen, are a species of men, and introduced to them you circulate in the "very best society" that this world can furnish, without the intolerable infliction of "dressing" to go into it. In your shabbiest coat and cosiest slippers you may socially chat even with the fastidious Earl of Chesterfield, and lounging under a tree enjoy the divinest intimacy with my late lord of Verulam.”

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Book:Delphi Complete Works of Herman Melville (Illustrated)
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“That author who draws a character, even though to common view incongruous in its parts, as the flying-squirrel, and, at differentperiods, as much at variance with itself as the caterpillar is with the butterfly into which it changes, may yet, in so doing, be not false but faithful to facts.”

MayCharacterFactsViewsCommonFictionCreativityDrawsFlyingFaithfulButterflySquirrelsCaterpillarsVariance
Book:The Confidence-man: His Masquerade
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“I don't know but a book in a man's brain is better off than a book bound in calf--at any rate it is safer from criticism. And taking a book off the brain, is akin to the ticklish & dangerous business of taking an old painting off a panel--you have to scrape off the whole brain in order to get at it with due safety--& even then, the painting may not be worth the trouble.”

KnowsMenMayBookWholeOrderBrainCreativityTroubleDangerousPaintingCriticismSafetyRateBoundsDuesBetter OffCalvesTicklish
Author:Herman Melville
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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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“To anybody who can hold the Present at its worth without being inappreciative of the Past, it may be forgiven, if to such an one the solitary old hulk at Portsmouth, Nelson's Victory, seems to float there, not alone as the decaying monument of a fame incorruptible, but also as a poetic approach, softened by its picturesqueness, to the Monitors and yet mightier hulls of the European ironclads.”

IfsMaySeemsPastVictoryFameApproachNostalgiaPoeticSolitaryForgivenFloatsNot AloneMonumentNelsonHullIroncladsPortsmouth
Book:Billy Budd, Bartleby, and Other Stories
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“There was about all the Romans a heroic tone peculiar to ancient life. Their virtues were great and noble, and these virtues madethem great and noble. They possessed a natural majesty that was not put on and taken off at pleasure, as was that of certain eastern monarchs when they put on or took off their garments of Tyrian dye. It is hoped that this is not wholly lost from the world, although the sense of earthly vanity inculcated by Christianity may have swallowed it up in humility.”

WorldMayCertainLostNaturalPleasureChristianityVirtueTakenGreatnessHumilityAncientNobleVanityTonePeculiarHeroicPossessedEasternMajestyGarmentsMonarchs
Book:Tales, Poems, and Other Writings
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“I have no objection to any person's religion, be it what it may, so long as that person does not kill or insult any other person, because that other person don't believe it also. But when a man's religion becomes really frantic; when it is a positive torment to him; and, in fine, makes this earth of ours an uncomfortable inn to lodge in; then I think it high time to take that individual aside and argue the point with him.”

ThinkingMenBelieveMayPersonsLongDoeEarthIndividualFineDon't BelieveArguingUncomfortableInsultTormentObjectionsFranticInnsLodges
Author:Herman Melville
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“However baby man may brag of his science and skill, and however much, in a flattering future, that science and skill may augment; yet for ever and for ever, to the crack of doom, the sea will insult and murder him, and pulverize the stateliest, stiffest frigate he can make; nevertheless, by the continual repetition of these very impressions, man has lost that sense of the full awfulness of the sea which aboriginally belongs to it.”

MenMayLostSeaBabySkillsMurderImpressionInsultCracksNeverthelessRepetitionDoomSailorFlatteringBragAwfulness
Book:Moby Dick (World Classics, Unabridged)
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“We may have civilized bodies and yet barbarous souls. We are blind to the real sights of this world; deaf to its voice; and dead to its death. And not till we know, that one grief outweighs ten thousand joys will we become what Christianity is striving to make us.”

KnowsWorldMayRealSoulBodyDeathJoyVoiceGriefChristianityThis WorldThousandTenSightBlindStriveCivilizedDeaf
Book:Redburn: Works of Herman Melville Volume Four
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