Herman Melville Quotes

“Ah! how cheerfully we consign ourselves to perdition.”
― Melville, Herman, Herman Melville Collection

“But when a man suspects any wrong, it sometimes happens that if he be already involved in the matter, he insensibly strives to cover up his suspicions even from himself. And much this way it was with me.”
― Herman Melville, Delphi Complete Works of Herman Melville US

“What’s all this fuss I have been making about, thought I to myself—the man’s a human being just as I am: he has just as much reason to fear me, as I have to be afraid of him. Better sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunken Christian.”
― Herman Melville, Herman Melville: The Complete works

“Eternity is not ours by right; and, alone, unrequited sufferings here, form no title thereto, unless resurrections are reserved for maltreated brutes. Suffering is suffering; be the sufferer man, brute, or thing.”
― Herman Melville, Herman Melville: The Complete Collection

“Sailors are the only class of men who now-a-days see anything like stirring adventure; and many things which to fire-side people appear strange and romantic, to them seem as common-place as a jacket out at elbows.”
― Herman Melville, Herman Melville: The Complete Collection

“I will have no man in my boat,” said Starbuck, “who is not afraid of a whale.” By this, he seemed to mean, not only that the most reliable and useful courage was that which arises from the fair estimation of the encountered peril, but that an utterly fearless man is a far more dangerous comrade than a coward”
― Herman Melville, The Complete Works of Herman Melville

“With no perceptible trace of the vainglorious about him, rather with the offhand unaffectedness of natural regality, he seemed to accept the spontaneous homage of his shipmates.”
― Herman Melville, Herman Melville: The Complete Collection

“hell is an idea first born on an undigested apple-dumpling;”
― Herman Melville, Herman Melville: The Complete Collection

“for we are all somehow dreadfully cracked about the head, and sadly need mending.”
― Herman Melville, Herman Melville: The Complete Collection

“In New Bedford, fathers, they say, give whales for dowers to their daughters,”
― Herman Melville, Herman Melville: The Complete Collection

“I was watching to see where he kept his razor, when lo and behold, he takes the harpoon from the bed corner, slips out the long wooden stock, unsheathes the head, whets it a little on his boot, and striding up to the bit of mirror against the wall, begins a vigorous scraping, or rather harpooning of his cheeks.”
― Herman Melville, Herman Melville: The Complete Collection

“His education was not yet completed. He was an undergraduate.”
― Herman Melville, Herman Melville: The Complete Collection

“On his return to the States, Melville drafted these experiences into Typee which was accepted for publication in 1846 in both New York and England. It was published first in England by Charles Murray in February 1846 as a part of the ‘Colonial and Home’ Series only after Melville added sections that focused on Typee culture. In March 1846 the first American edition appeared and was essentially the same as the British one with minor alterations. Although an immediate success on both sides of the Atlantic it was strongly criticised for its attack on missionaries and the openness of its discussions of sexuality. Also many questioned its authenticity which was only ended when his fellow castaway Richard Tobias Greene (the Toby character in the account) corroborated Melville’s story. This led to the sequel ‘The Story of Toby’ which recounted his experiences. Subsequent American editions were carefully edited to remove the content considered offensive and controversial. Eventually in 1892 Arthur Stedman, Melville’s literary executor produced an edition based on the original British version, but even then changes and variations were made.”
― Herman Melville, Delphi Complete Works of Herman Melville US

“It was in the summer of 1842,”
― Herman Melville, Delphi Complete Works of Herman Melville US

“Idumea”
― Herman Melville, Complete Works of Herman Melville "American Novelist, Short Story Writer and Poet from the Renaissance Period"! 19 Complete Works (Moby Dick, Typee, Omoo, ... Budd, Mardi, Israel Potter)

“Tell a good man that he is free to commit murder, — will he murder? Tell a murderer that at the peril of his soul he indulges in murderous thoughts, — will that make him a saint?”
― Herman Melville, Delphi Complete Works of Herman Melville US

“My lord, it is easier for some men to be saints, than for others not to be sinners.”
― Herman Melville, Delphi Complete Works of Herman Melville US

“My lord, like one’s cranium, it will endure till broken.”
― Herman Melville, Delphi Complete Works of Herman Melville US

“It’s pleasant to sit by, a demi-god, and hear the surmisings of mortals, upon things they know nothing about; theology, or amber, or ambergris, it’s all the same. But then, did I always out with every thing I know, there would be no conversing with these comical creatures.”
― Herman Melville, Delphi Complete Works of Herman Melville US

“My cheek blanches white while I write; I start at the scratch of my pen; my own mad brood of eagles devours me; fain would I unsay this audacity; but an iron-mailed hand clenches mine in a vice, and prints down every letter in my spite.”
― Herman Melville, Delphi Complete Works of Herman Melville US

“The air was sultry and still, as if full of spent thunderbolts.”
― Herman Melville, Delphi Complete Works of Herman Melville US

“What a delightful, lazy, languid time we had whilst we were thus gliding along!”
― Herman Melville, Delphi Complete Works of Herman Melville US

“By reason of these things, then, the whaling voyage was welcome; the great flood-gates of the wonder-world swung open, and in the wild conceits that swayed me to my purpose, two and two there floated into my inmost soul, endless processions of the whale, and, mid most of them all, one grand hooded phantom, like a snow hill in the air.”
― Herman Melville, The Herman Melville Collection

“If a drunkard in a sober fit is the dullest of mortals, an enthusiast in a reason-fit is not the most lively. And this, without prejudice to his greatly improved understanding; for, if his elation was the height of his madness, his despondency is but the extreme of his sanity.”
― Herman Melville, Delphi Complete Works of Herman Melville US