Herman Melville was an American novelist, short story writer, and poet of the American Renaissance period. Among his best-known works are Moby-Dick (1851), Typee (1846), a romanticized account of his experiences in Polynesia, and Billy Budd, Sailor, a posthumously published novella. Although his reputation was not high at the time of his death, the centennial of his birth in 1919 was the starting point of a Melville revival and Moby-Dick grew to be considered one of the great American novels. These Herman Melville quotes will motivate you.
Best Herman Melville Quotes
- “Of all the preposterous assumptions of humanity over humanity, nothing exceeds most of the criticisms made on the habits of the poor by the well-housed, well- warmed, and well-fed.” ~ Herman Melville
- “It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation.” ~ Herman Melville
- “True places are not found on maps.” ~ Herman Melville
- “Only the man who says no is free” ~ Herman Melville
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“Ignorance is the parent of fear.” ~ Herman Melville
- “No philosophers so thoroughly comprehend us as dogs and horses.” ~ Herman Melville
- “It is not down in any map; true places never are.” ~ Herman Melville
- “Life’s a voyage that’s homeward bound.” ~ Herman Melville
- “The Past is dead, and has no resurrection; but the Future is endowed with such a life, that it lives to us even in anticipation. The Past is, in many things, the foe of mankind; the Future is, in all things, our friend. In the Past is no hope; The Future is both hope and fruition. The Past is the text-book of tyrants; the Future is the Bible of the Free. Those who are solely governed by the Past stand like Lot’s wife, crystallized in the act of looking backward, and forever incapable of looking before.” ~ Herman Melville
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“Whatever my fate, I’ll go to it laughing.” ~ Herman Melville
- “It is better to fail in originality, than to succeed in imitation. He who has never failed somewhere, that man can not be great. Failure is the true test of greatness.” ~ Herman Melville
- “The eyes are the gateway to the soul.” ~ Herman Melville
- “We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men.” ~ Herman Melville
- “We are only what we are; not what we would be; nor every thing we hope for. We are but a step in a scale, that reaches further above us than below.” ~ Herman Melville
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“When among wild beasts, if they menace you, be a wild beast.” ~ Herman Melville
- “Is there some principle of nature which states that we never know the quality of what we have until it is gone?” ~ Herman Melville
- “Art is the objectification of feeling.” ~ Herman Melville
- “Truth is in things, and not in words.” ~ Herman Melville
- “I love to sail forbidden seas, and land on barbarous coasts.” ~ Herman Melville
- “You know nothing till you know all; which is the reason we never know anything.” ~ Herman Melville
- “Truth uncompromisingly told will always have its ragged edges.” ~ Herman Melville
- “The sweetest joys of life grow in the very jaws of its perils.” ~ Herman Melville
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“Meditation and water are wedded forever.” ~ Herman Melville
- “He who has never failed somewhere, that man can not be great.” ~ Herman Melville
- “Silence is the only Voice of our God.” ~ Herman Melville
- “I have no objection to any person’s religion, be it what it may, so long as that person does not kill or insult any other person, because that other person don’t believe it also. But when a man’s religion becomes really frantic; when it is a positive torment to him; and, in fine, makes this earth of ours an uncomfortable inn to lodge in; then I think it high time to take that individual aside and argue the point with him.” ~ Herman Melville
- “If you can get nothing better out of the world, get a good dinner out of it, at least.” ~ Herman Melville
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“An utterly fearless man is a far more dangerous comrade than a coward.” ~ Herman Melville
- “The most mighty of nature’s laws is this, that out of Death she brings Life.” ~ Herman Melville
- “They talk of the dignity of work. The dignity is in leisure.” ~ Herman Melville
- “A smile is the chosen vehicle of all ambiguities.” ~ Herman Melville
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“I am, as I am; whether hideous or handsome, depends upon who is made judge.” ~ Herman Melville
- “Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people’s hats off – then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can.” ~ Herman Melville
- “Stay true to the dreams of thy youth.” ~ Herman Melville
- “Beneath those stars is a universe of gliding monsters.” ~ Herman Melville
- “There is no quality in this world that is not what it is merely by contrast. Nothing exists in itself.” ~ Herman Melville
- “The only true infidelity is for a live man to vote himself dead.” ~ Herman Melville
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“Nature is nobody’s ally.” ~ Herman Melville
- “I cherish the greatest respect towards everybody’s religious obligations, no matter how comical.” ~ Herman Melville
- “Fame is an accident; merit a thing absolute.” ~ Herman Melville
- “All Profound things, and emotions of things are preceded and attended by Silence… Silence is the general consecration of the universe. Silence is the invisible laying on of the Divine Pontiff’s hands upon the world. Silence is at once the most harmless and the most awful thing in all nature. It speaks of the Reserved Forces of Fate. Silence is the only Voice of our God.” ~ Herman Melville
- “One of the coolest and wisest hours a man has, is just after he awakes in the morning.” ~ Herman Melville
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“It is hard to be finite upon an infinite subject, and all subjects are infinite.” ~ Herman Melville
- “In this world of lies, Truth is forced to fly like a scared white doe in the woodlands; and only by cunning glimpses will she reveal herself, as in Shakespeare and other masters of the great Art of Telling the Truth, even though it be covertly, and by snatches.” ~ Herman Melville
- “Think not, is my eleventh commandment; and sleep when you can, is my twelfth.” ~ Herman Melville
- “To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme.” ~ Herman Melville
- “I am a man who, from his youth upwards, has been filled with a profound conviction that the easiest way of life is the best.” ~ Herman Melville quotes
- “There’s magic in the water that draws all men away form the land, that leads them over hills, down creeks and streams and rivers to the sea.” ~ Herman Melville
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“The path to my fixed purpose is laid with iron rails whereon my soul is grooved to run” ~ Herman Melville
- “Why did the old Persians hold the sea holy? Why did the Greeks give it a separate deity, and own brother Jove? Surely all this is not without meaning. And still deeper the meaning of that story of Narcissus, who because he could not grasp the tormenting mild image he saw in the fountain, plunged into it and was drowned. But that same image, we ourselves see in all rivers and oceans. It is the image of the ungraspable phantom of life; and this is the key to it all.” ~ Herman Melville
- “Ladies are like creeds; if you cannot speak well of them, say nothing.” ~ Herman Melville
- “When the passage “All men are born free and equal,” when that passage was being written were not some of the signers legalised owners of slaves?” ~ Herman Melville
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“Failure is the true test of greatness” ~ Herman Melville
- “I know not all that may be coming, but be it what it will, I’ll go to it laughing.” ~ Herman Melville
- “There is nothing so slipperily alluring as sadness; we become sad in the first place by having nothing stirring to do; we continue in it, because we have found a snug sofa at last.” ~ Herman Melville
- “In a multitude of acquaintances is less security, than in one faithful friend.” ~ Herman Melville
- “You cannot spill a drop of American blood without spilling the blood of the whole world…. We are not a nation, so much as a world.” ~ Herman Melville
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“There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness is the true method.” ~ Herman Melville
- “Faith, like a jackal, feeds among the tombs, and even from these dead doubts she gathers her most vital hope.” ~ Herman Melville
“I’ll try a pagan friend, thought I, since Christian kindness has proved but hollow courtesy.” ~ Herman Melville - “Do not presume, well-housed, well-warmed, and well-fed, to criticize the poor” ~ Herman Melville
- “A whale ship was my Yale College and my Harvard.” ~ Herman Melville
- “As for me, I am tormented with an everlasting itch for things remote. I love to sail forbidden seas, and land on barbarous coasts.” ~ Herman Melville
- “Friendship at first sight, like love at first sight, is said to be the only truth.” ~ Herman Melville
- “Real strength never impairs beauty or harmony, but it often bestows it, and in everything imposingly beautiful, strength has much to do with the magic.” ~ Herman Melville
- “for there is no folly of the beast of the earth which is not infinitely outdone by the madness of men” ~ Herman Melville
