Herman Melville quotes - page 8

Madman! Look through my eyes if thou hast none of thine own. (Herman Melville)
For whatever is truly wondrous and fearful in man, never yet was put into words or books.
Herman Melville
For, as when the red-cheeked, dancing girls, April and May, trip home to the wintry, misanthropic woods even the barest, ruggedest, most thunder-cloven old oak will at least send forth some few green sprouts, to welcome such glad-hearted visitants . . .
Herman Melville
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.
Herman Melville
All visible objects, man, are but as pasteboard masks. But in each event - in the living act, the undoubted deed - there, some unknown but still reasoning thing puts forth the mouldings of its features from behind the unreasoning mask.
Herman Melville
Give me a condor's quill Give me Vesuvius crater for an inkstand.
Herman Melville
Yea, foolish mortals, Noah's flood is not yet subsided two thirds of the fair world it yet covers.
Herman Melville
No mercy, no power but its own controls it. Panting and snorting like a mad battle steed that has lost its rider, the masterless ocean overruns the globe.
Herman Melville
Thou saw'st the locked lovers when leaping from their flaming ship; heart to heart they sank beneath the exulting wave; true to each other, when heaven seemed false to them.
Herman Melville
That immaculate manliness we feel within ourselves, so far within us, that it remains intact though all the outer character seem gone; bleeds with keenest anguish at the undraped spectacle of a valor-ruined man.
Herman Melville
Let me look into a human eye it is better than to gaze into sea or sky better than to gaze upon God. (Herman Melville)
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.
Herman Melville
But as in landlessness alone resides the highest truth, shoreless, indefinite as God - so better is it to perish in that howling infinite, than be ingloriously dashed upon the lee, even if that were safety! For worm-like, then, oh! who would craven crawl to land!
Herman Melville
So, when on one side you hoist in Locke's head, you go over that way; but now, on the other side, hoist in Kant's and you come back again; but in very poor plight. Thus, some minds for ever keep trimming boat. Oh, ye foolish! throw all these thunder-heads overboard, and then you will float light and right.
Herman Melville
But even so, amid the tornadoed Atlantic of my being, do I myself still for ever centrally disport in mute calm; and while ponderous planets of unwaning woe revolve round me, deep down and deep inland there I still bathe me in eternal mildness of joy.
Herman Melville
Though amid all the smoking horror and diabolism of a sea-fight, sharks will be seen longingly gazing up to the ship's decks, like hungry dogs round a table where red meat is being carved, ready to bolt down every killed man that is tossed to them . . .
Herman Melville
Out of the trunk, the branches grow; out of them, the twigs. So, in productive subjects, grow the chapters.
Herman Melville
Thrusted light is worse than presented pistols.
Herman Melville
There seems no reason why patriotism and narrowness should go together, or why intellectual fairmindedness should be confounded with political trimming, or why serviceable truth should keep cloistered because not partisan.
Herman Melville
I rejoice in my spine, as in the firm audacious staff of that flag which I fling half out to the world.
Herman Melville
As soon as you say Me, a God, a Nature, so soon you jump off from your stool and hang from the beam. Yes, that word is the hangman. Take God out of the dictionary, and you would have Him in the street. (Herman Melville)
A man of true science... uses but few hard words, and those only when none other will answer his purpose.
Herman Melville
I'm not talking of Mr Emerson now - but of the whole corps of thought-divers, that have been diving & coming up again with bloodshot eyes since the world began.
Herman Melville
Who knows that, when men-of-war shall be no more, "White-Jacket" may not be quoted to show to the people in the Millennium what a man-of-war was? God hasten the time!
Herman Melville
These are the last resources of an insulted and unendurable existence.
Herman Melville