Melville, Herman
quotes - related books on Amazon ->
Melville, Herman
Some dying men are the most tyrannical; and certainly, since they will shortly trouble us so little for evermore, the poor fellows ought to be indulged.
Melville, Herman
Death and Dying
If some books are deemed most baneful and their sale forbid, how, then, with deadlier facts, not dreams of doting men? Those whom books will hurt will not be proof against events. Events, not books, should be forbid.
Melville, Herman
Censorship
Let America first praise mediocrity even, in her children, before she praises... the best excellence in the children of any other land.
Melville, Herman
Patriotism
Faith, like a jackal, feeds among the tombs, and even from these dead doubts she gathers her most vital hope.
Melville, Herman
Faith
He who has never failed somewhere, that man can not be great.
Melville, Herman
Failure
In our own hearts, we mold the whole world s hereafters; and in our own hearts we fashion our own gods.
Melville, Herman
Heart
Let me look into a human eye; it is better than to gaze into sea or sky; better than to gaze upon God.
Melville, Herman
Humankind
For whatever is truly wondrous and fearful in man, never yet was put into words or books.
Melville, Herman
Literature
They talk of the dignity of work. The dignity is in leisure.
Melville, Herman
Leisure
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.
Melville, Herman
Insensitivity
Hope is the struggle of the soul, breaking loose from what is perishable, and attesting her eternity.
Melville, Herman
Hope
When I think of this life I have led; the desolation of solitude it has been; the masoned, walled-town of a Captain s exclusiveness, which admits but small entrance to any sympathy from the green country without -- oh, weariness! heaviness! Guinea-coast slavery of solitary command!
Melville, Herman
Leaders and Leadership
I feel that the Godhead is broken up like the bread at the Supper, and that we are the pieces. Hence this infinite fraternity of feeling.
Melville, Herman
Human Fellowship
The lightning flashes through my skull; mine eyeballs ache and ache; my whole beaten brain seems as beheaded, and rolling on some stunning ground.
Melville, Herman
Madness
The consciousness of being deemed dead, is next to the presumable unpleasantness of being so in reality. One feels like his own ghost unlawfully tenanting a defunct carcass.
Melville, Herman
Survival
He says NO! in thunder; but the Devil himself cannot make him say yes.
Melville, Herman
Obstinacy
But it is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation.
Melville, Herman
Originality
Why, ever since Adam, who has got to the meaning of this great allegory -- the world? Then we pygmies must be content to have out paper allegories but ill comprehended.
Melville, Herman
Philosophers and Philosophy
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.
Melville, Herman
Speech
People think that if a man has undergone any hardship, he should have a reward; but for my part, if I have done the hardest possible day s work, and then come to sit down in a corner and eat my supper comfortably --why, then I don t think I deserve any reward for my hard day s work --for am I not now at peace? Is not my supper good?
Melville, Herman
Rewards
There is something wrong about the man who wants help. There is somewhere a deep defect, a want, in brief, a need, a crying need, somewhere about that man.
Melville, Herman
Aid and Assistance
How it is I know not; but there is no place like a bed for confidential disclosures between friends. Man and wife, they say, there open the very bottom of their souls to each other; and some old couples often lie and chat over old times till nearly morning. Thus, then, in our hearts honeymoon, lay I and Queequeg -- a cozy, loving pair.
Melville, Herman
Bed
Look you, Doubloon, your zodiac here is the life of man in one round chapter. To begin: there s Aries, or the Ram -- lecherous dog, he begets us; then, Taurus, or the Bull -- he bumps us the first thing; then Gemini, or the Twins -- that is, Virtue and Vice; we try to reach Virtue, when lo! comes Cancer the Crab, and drags us back; and here, going from Virtue, Leo, a roaring Lion, lies in the path -- he gives a few fierce bites and surly dabs with his paw; we escape, and hail Virgo, the virgin! that s our first love; we marry and think to be happy for aye, when pop comes Libra, or the Scales -- happiness weighed and found wanting; and while we are very sad about that, Lord! how we suddenly jump, as Scorpio, or the Scorpion, stings us in rear; we are curing the wound, when come the arrows all round; Sagittarius, or the Archer, is amusing himself. As we pluck out the shafts, stand aside! here s the battering-ram, Capricornus, or the Goat; full tilt, he comes rushing, and headlong we are tossed; when Aquarius, or the Waterbearer, pours out his whole deluge and drowns us; and, to wind up, with Pisces, or the Fishes, we sleep.
Melville, Herman
Astrology
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 courses, and they come back to us as effects.
Melville, Herman
Action
Old age is always wakeful; as if, the longer linked with life, the less man has to do with aught that looks like death.
Melville, Herman
Age and Aging
Give me a condor s quill! Give me Vesuvius crater for an inkstand!
Melville, Herman
Writers and Writing
Toil is man s allotment; toil of brain, or toil of hands, or a grief that s more than either, the grief and sin of idleness.
Melville, Herman
Work