Quotes by Herman Melville
There is one knows not what sweet mystery about this sea, whose gently awful stirrings seem to speak of some hidden soul beneath.
To be called one thing, is oftentimes to be another.
Truth uncompromisingly told will always have its ragged edges.
Know, thou, that the lines that live are turned out of a furrowed brow.
Truth is the silliest thing under the sun. Try to get a living by the Truth and go to the Soup Societies. Heavens! Let any clergyman try to preach the Truth from its very stronghold, the pulpit, and they would ride him out of his church on his own pulpit bannister.
The march of conquest through wild provinces, may be the march of Mind; but not the march of Love.
There are some persons in this world, who, unable to give better proof of being wise, take a strange delight in showing what they think they have sagaciously read in mankind by uncharitable suspicions of them.
To be hated cordially, is only a left-handed compliment.
Friendship at first sight, like love at first sight, is said to be the only truth.
To the last, I grapple with thee; From Hell's heart, I stab at thee; For hate's sake, I spit my last breath at thee.
There is a touch of divinity even in brutes, and a special halo about a horse, that should forever exempt him from indignities.
There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes his whole universe for a vast practical joke.
A smile is the chosen vehicle of all ambiguities.
Truth is in things, and not in words.
There are times when even the most potent governor must wink at transgression, in order to preserve the laws inviolate for the future.
There are hardly five critics in America; and several of them are asleep.
I am, as I am; whether hideous, or handsome, depends upon who is made judge.
It is impossible to talk or to write without apparently throwing oneself helplessly open.
Better to sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunken Christian.
There is no dignity in wickedness, whether in purple or rags; and hell is a democracy of devils, where all are equals.
There is sorrow in the world, but goodness too; and goodness that is not greenness, either, no more than sorrow is.
Where do murderers go, man! Who's to doom, when the judge himself is dragged to the bar?
Heaven have mercy on us all - Presbyterians and Pagans alike - for we are all somehow dreadfully cracked about the head, and sadly need mending.
At sea a fellow comes out. Salt water is like wine, in that respect.
There is nothing namable but that some men will, or undertake to, do it for pay.
