Quotes from Herman Melville

With a philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword; I quietly take to the ship. There is nothing surprising in this. If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me.

Starbuck; let me look into a human eye; it is better than to gaze into sea or sky; better than to gaze upon God.

With a philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword

Cussed fellow-critters! Kick up de damndest row as ever you can; fill your dam bellies 'till dey bust - and den die

Yet this is life. For hardly have we mortals by long toilings extracted from this world's vast bulk its small but valuable sperm; and then, with weary patience, cleansed ourselves from its defilements, and learned to live here in clean tabernacles of the soul; hardly is this done, when-There she blows!-the ghost is spouted up, and away we sail to fight some other world, and go through young life's old routine again.

A gentle joyousness-a mighty mildness of repose in swiftness, invested the gliding whale. Not the white bull Jupiter swimming away with ravished Europa clinging to his graceful horns; his lovely, leering eyes sideways intent upon the maid; with smooth bewitching fleetness, rippling straight for the nuptial bower in Crete; not Jove, not that great majesty Supreme! did surpass the glorified White Whale as he so divinely swam.

One of the coolest and wisest hours a man has, is just after he awakes in the morning.

Say you are in the country; in some high land of lakes. Take almost any path you please, and ten to one it carries you down in a dale, and leaves you there by a pool in the stream.

In those jaws of swift destruction, like another Jonah (by which name they indeed called him), bustles a little withered old man, who, for their money, dearly sells the sailors deliriums and death. Abominable are the tumblers into which he pours his poison.

and he whose intense thinking thus makes him a Prometheus; a vulture feeds upon that heart for ever; that vulture the very creature he creates.

been forgotten, but his longest novel, Moby-Dick — largely considered a failure during his lifetime, and responsible for Melville's drop in popularity — was rediscovered in the 20th century as a literary masterpiece. Source: Wikipedia

However, a good laugh is a mighty good thing, and rather too scarce a good thing; the more's the pity.

Now would all the waves were women, then I'd drown, and chassée with them evermore!

I now prophesy that I will dismember my dismemberer.

It's a mutual, joint-stock world, in all meridians. We cannibals must help these Christians.

Morning to ye! Morning to ye!

Aft here, ye sons of bachelors, he cried, as the sailors lingered at the main-mast. Mr. Starbuck, drive aft.

I believe, all the royal emoluments incident to the Cinque Port territories become by assignment his. By some writers this office is called a sinecure.

Long exile from Christendom and civilization inevitably restores a man to that condition in which God placed him, i.e. what is called savagery. Your true whale-hunter is as much a savage as an Iroquois. I myself am a savage, owning no allegiance but to the King of the Cannibals; and ready at any moment to rebel against him.

spring, and break thy backbone! Why don't ye spring, I say, all of ye—spring! Quohog! spring, thou chap with the red whiskers; spring there, Scotch-cap; spring, thou

And doubtless, my going on this whaling voyage, formed part of the grand programme of Providence that was drawn up a long time ago. It came in as a brief interlude and solo between more extensive performances. I take it that this part of the bill must have run something like this: Grand Contested Election for the Presidency of the United States Whaling Voyage by One Ishmael Bloody Battle in Affghanistan

Erskine was on the other side; and he then supported it by saying, that though the gentleman had originally harpooned the lady, and had once had her fast, and only by reason of the great stress of her plunging viciousness, had at last abandoned her; yet abandon her he did, so that she became a loose-fish; and therefore when a subsequent gentleman re-harpooned her, the lady then became that subsequent gentleman's property, along with whatever

Book! you lie there; the fact is, you books must know your places.

And what is it, thought I, after all! It's only his outside; a man can be honest in any sort of skin.