Herman Melville Quotes

To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme. No great and enduring volume can ever be written on the flea, though many there be that have tried it.
Herman Melville

Great, Book, Though

At sea a fellow comes out. Salt water is like wine, in that respect.
Herman Melville

Respect, Wine, Sea

Faith, like a jackal, feeds among the tombs, and even from these dead doubts she gathers her most vital hope.
Herman Melville

Faith, Hope, Her

He who has never failed somewhere, that man can not be great.
Herman Melville

Great, Somewhere, Failed

In this world, shipmates, sin that pays its way can travel freely, and without passport; whereas Virtue, if a pauper, is stopped at all frontiers.
Herman Melville

Travel, Virtue, Sin

It is impossible to talk or to write without apparently throwing oneself helplessly open.
Herman Melville

Impossible, Talk, Write

Let America first praise mediocrity even, in her children, before she praises... the best excellence in the children of any other land.
Herman Melville

Best, Children, Before

There are hardly five critics in America; and several of them are asleep.
Herman Melville

America, Five, Critics

There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness is the true method.
Herman Melville

True, Careful, Method

There is all of the difference in the world between paying and being paid.
Herman Melville

Between, Difference, Paid

There is no quality in this world that is not what it is merely by contrast. Nothing exists in itself.
Herman Melville

Nothing, Quality, Exists

There is nothing namable but that some men will, or undertake to, do it for pay.
Herman Melville

Men, Nothing, Pay

There is sorrow in the world, but goodness too; and goodness that is not greenness, either, no more than sorrow is.
Herman Melville

Sorrow, Either, Goodness

They talk of the dignity of work. The dignity is in leisure.
Herman Melville

Work, Talk, Dignity

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.
Herman Melville

Brain, Either, Hands

Hope is the struggle of the soul, breaking loose from what is perishable, and attesting her eternity.
Herman Melville

Hope, Struggle, Soul

Is there some principal of nature which states that we never know the quality of what we have until it is gone?
Herman Melville

Nature, Until, Quality

It is not down in any map; true places never are.
Herman Melville

True, Down, Places

Know, thou, that the lines that live are turned out of a furrowed brow.
Herman Melville

Live, Lines, Thou

Old age is always wakeful; as if, the longer linked with life, the less man has to do with aught that looks like death.
Herman Melville

Life, Age, Death

The march of conquest through wild provinces, may be the march of Mind; but not the march of Love.
Herman Melville

Love, Mind, May

There are times when even the most potent governor must wink at transgression, in order to preserve the laws inviolate for the future.
Herman Melville

Future, Times, Order

To be called one thing, is oftentimes to be another.
Herman Melville

Another, Oftentimes

Where do murderers go, man! Who's to doom, when the judge himself is dragged to the bar?
Herman Melville

Judge, Himself, Bar

Yet habit - strange thing! what cannot habit accomplish?
Herman Melville

Strange, Cannot, Accomplish

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Biography

Nationality: American

Born: August 1, 1819

Died: September 28, 1891

Links

Find on Amazon: Herman Melville

Cite this Page: Citation

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