Quotes by Herman Melville

Herman Melville

Herman Melville

American author

Lived from: 1819 - 1891

Category: Writers (Contemporary) Country: FlagUnited States

Born: 1 august 1819 Died: 28 september 1891

  • We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men; and among those fibers, as sympathetic threads, our actions run as courses, and they come back to us as effects.
  • 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.
  • Old age is always wakeful; as if, the longer linked with life, the less man has to do with aught that looks like death.

Quotes 1 till 20 of 24.

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  • In our own hearts, we mold the whole world's hereafters; and in our own hearts we fashion our own gods.
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  • But it is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation.
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  • Faith, like a jackal, feeds among the tombs, and even from these dead doubts she gathers her most vital hope.
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  • For whatever is truly wondrous and fearful in man, never yet was put into words or books.
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  • Give me a condor's quill! Give me Vesuvius crater for an inkstand!
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  • He says NO! in thunder; but the Devil himself cannot make him say yes.
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  • He who has never failed somewhere, that man can not be great.
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  • Hope is the struggle of the soul, breaking loose from what is perishable, and attesting her eternity.
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  • I feel that the Godhead is broken up like the bread at the Supper, and that we are the pieces. Hence this infinite fraternity of feeling.
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  • If some books are deemed most baneful and their sale forbid, how, then, with deadlier facts, not dreams of doting men? Those whom books will hurt will not be proof against events. Events, not books, should be forbid.
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  • Let America first praise mediocrity even, in her children, before she praises... the best excellence in the children of any other land.
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  • Let me look into a human eye; it is better than to gaze into sea or sky; better than to gaze upon God.
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  • Let us speak, though we show all our faults and weaknesses, for it is a sign of strength to be weak, to know it, and out with it - not in a set way and ostentatiously, though, but incidentally and without premeditation.
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  • 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
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  • Some dying men are the most tyrannical; and certainly, since they will shortly trouble us so little for evermore, the poor fellows ought to be indulged.
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  • 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
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  • The lightning flashes through my skull; mine eyeballs ache and ache; my whole beaten brain seems as beheaded, and rolling on some stunning ground.
    ― Herman Melville
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  • There is something wrong about the man who wants help. There is somewhere a deep defect, a want, in brief, a need, a crying need, somewhere about that man.
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  • They talk of the dignity of work. The dignity is in leisure.
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  • 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.
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Questions and Answers

What are the most famous quotes from Herman Melville?

The two most famous quotes from Herman Melville are:

  • "In our own hearts, we mold the whole world's hereafters; and in our own hearts we fashion our own gods."
  • "But it is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation."

When did Herman Melville live?

Herman Melville was born in 1819 and died in the year 1891.