Quotes from Herman Melville

oh armadores de Nantucket! ¡Cuidado con alistar en vuestras vigilantes pesquerías a ningún muchacho de frente descarnada y mirada profunda, dado a tan inoportuna meditatividad, y que se ofrece para embarcarse llevando en la cabeza el «Fedón» en vez del Bowditch! Cuidado con semejante persona

Las pequeñas obras deben ser terminadas por sus primeros arquitectos. En cuanto a las grandes, las verdaderas, debe dejarse que la posteridad las complete. ¡Que Dios me libre de pretender completar nunca nada! Todo este libro no es sino un esbozo, el esbozo de un esbozo. ¡Oh, tiempo, energía, dinero, paciencia!

Chiamatemi Ismaele. Alcuni anni fa - non importa quanti esattamente - avendo pochi o punti denari in tasca e nulla di particolare che m'interessasse a terra, pensai di darmi alla navigazione e vedere la parte acquea del mondo. E' un modo che ho io di cacciare la malinconia e di regolare la circolazione.

It rolls the mid-most waters of the world, the Indian Ocean and Atlantic being just its arms.

if he is going to live for ever, what good will it do to pitch him overboard—tell me that?" "Give him a good ducking, anyhow.

Fast-Fish? What

It was so in the Pequod with the little negro Pippin by nick-name, Pip by abbreviation.

Yes, I have heard something curious on that score sir, how that a dismasted man never entirely loses the feeling of his old spar, but it will still be pricking him at time.

He had much prudence, much conscientiousness, and there were occasions when these virtues were the cause of overmuch disquietude in him.

It's only his outside; a man can be honest in any sort of skin.

While you take in hand to school others, and to teach them by what name a whale-fish is to be called in our tongue leaving out, through ignorance, the letter H, which almost alone maketh the signification of the word, you deliver that which is not true." —Hackluyt

Champollion deciphered the wrinkled granite hieroglyphics. But there is no Champollion to decipher the Egypt of every man's and every being's face.

Be careful in the hunt, ye mates.

You cannot hide the soul. Through all his unearthly tattooings, I thought I saw the traces of a simple honest heart; and in his large, deep eyes, fiery black and bold, there seemed tokens of a spirit that would dare a thousand devils. And

I think I see his impious end; but feel that I must help him to it. Will I, nill I, the ineffable thing has tied me to him; tows me with a cable I have no knife to cut.

You is sharks, sartin; but if you gobern de shark in you, why den you be angel; for all angel is not'ing more dan de shark well goberned.

Champollion deciphered the wrinkled granite hieroglyphics. But there is no Champollion to decipher the Egypt of every man's and every being's face. Physiognomy, like every other human science, is but a passing fable.

There's something ever egotistical in mountain-tops and towers, and all other grand and lofty things; look here, three peaks as proud as Lucifer. The firm tower, that is Ahab; the volcano, that is Ahab; the courageous, the undaunted, and victorious fowl, that, too, is Ahab; all are Ahab; and this round gold is but the image of the rounder globe, which, like a magician's glass, to each and every man in turn but mirrors back his own mysterious self.

Captain Ahab had evinced his customary activity, to call it so; yet now that the creature was dead, some vague dissatisfaction, or impatience, or despair, seemed working in him; as if the sight of that dead body reminded him that Moby Dick was yet to be slain; and though a thousand other whales were brought to his ship, all that would not one jot advance his grand, monomaniac object.

Not seldom in this life, when, on the right side, fortune's favourites sail close by us, we, though all adroop before, catch somewhat of the rushing breeze, and joyfully feel our bagging sails fill out. So seemed it with the Pequod. For next day

What are the sinews and souls of Russian serfs and Republican slaves but Fast-Fish, whereof possession is the whole of the law?

As touching Slave-ships meeting, why, they are in such a prodigious hurry, they run away from each other as soon as possible. And as for Pirates, when they chance to cross each other's cross-bones, the first hail is— How many skulls?— the same way that whalers hail— How many barrels? And that question once answered, pirates straightway steer apart, for they are infernal villains on both sides, and don't like to see overmuch of each other's villanous likenesses.

Well, ye're an honest rebel—rebel, yes, rebel. Hark ye, hark. Say nothing of this talk to any one. And hark again. So long as you remain here at Kew, I shall see that you are safe—safe. God bless your Majesty! Eh? God bless your noble Majesty? Come—come—come, smiled the king in delight, I thought I could conquer ye—conquer ye. Not the king, but the king's kindness, your Majesty.

And heaved and heaved, still unrestingly heaved the black sea