Quotes from Herman Melville

two and two there floated into my inmost soul, endless processions of the whale, and, mid most of them all, one grand hooded phantom, like a snow hill in the air.

Yet, when by this collision forced to turn towards home, and for long months of days and weeks, Ahab and anguish lay stretched together in one hammock, rounding in mid winter that dreary, howling Patagonian Cape; then it was, that his torn body and gashed soul bled into one another; and so interfusing, made him mad.

Every heart is ice-bound till wine melt it, and reveal the tender grass and sweet herbage budding below, with every dear secret, hidden before like a dropped jewel in a snow-bank, lying there unsuspected through winter till spring.

But, perhaps, to be true philosophers, we mortals should not be conscious of so living or so striving. So soon as I hear that such or such a man gives himself out for a philosopher, I conclude that, like the dyspeptic old woman, he must have broken his digester.

Starbuck was an honest, upright man; but out of Starbuck's heart, at that instant when he saw the muskets, there strangely evolved an evil thought; but so blent with its neutral or good accompaniments that for the instant he hardly knew it for itself.

En todas las cosas está oculto siempre un significado: de lo contrario, poco valdrían, y el mundo mismo no sería más que una cifra vacía

Neste mundo, o pecado que paga a passagem pode viajar tranquilamente e sem passaporte, enquanto que a virtude em um pobre é detida em todas as fronteiras.

Lord, when shall we be done growing? As long as we have anything more to do, we have done nothing. So,now, let us add Moby Dick to our blessing, and step from that. Leviathan is not the biggest fish; I have heard of Krakens.

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.

Again, I always go to sea as a sailor, because they make a point of paying me for my trouble, whereas they never pay passengers a single penny that I ever heard of.

for as the soul is glued inside of its fleshy tabernacle and cannot freely move about in it, nor even move out of it, without running great risk of perishing like an ignorant pilgrim crossing the snowy Alps in winter, so a watch coat is not so much of a house as it is a mere envelope or additional skin encasing you.

All the world over, the picturesque yields to the pocketesque.

But when a man suspects any wrong, it sometimes happens that if he be already involved in the matter, he insensibly strives to cover up his suspicions even from himself. And much this way it was with me. I said nothing, and tried to think nothing.

There's no way to stop my singing in this world but to cut my throat. And when that's done, ten to one I sing ye the doxology for a wind-up.

this whale carries the everlasting mail!

Me parece que mi cuerpo no es más que las heces de mi mejor ser. De hecho, que se lleve mi cuerpo quien quiera, que se lo lleve, digo: no es yo. Y por consiguiente, tres hurras por Nantucket, y que vengan cuando quieran el bote desfondado y el cuerpo desfondado, porque ni el propio Júpiter es capaz de desfondarme el alma.

el que no conoce el miedo resulta mucho más peligroso que un cobarde para sus compañeros.

Oh, grassy glades! oh ever vernal endless landscapes in the soul; in ye,—though long parched by the dead drought of the earthly life,— in ye, men yet may roll, like young horses in new morning clover; and for some few fleeting moments, feel the cool dew of the life immortal on them. Would to God these blessed calms would last. But the mingled, mingling threads of life are woven by warp and woof: calms crossed by storms, a storm for every calm.

Pek çok uzun, mükerrer tecrübeler sonucunda art?k ÅŸunu anlad?m ki insan eriÅŸebileceÄŸi mutluluk seviyesine dair beklentisini aÅŸa?? çekmeli, en az?ndan yeniden deÄŸerlendirmelidir. MutluluÄŸu ak?l veya hayal yoluyla var?labilecek bir ÅŸey olarak görmekten vazgeçip kar?s?nda, yüreÄŸinde, yata??nda, masas?nda, eyerde, ÅŸömine ba??nda, k?rlarda aramal?d?r.

The islanders, while employed in erecting this tenement, reminded me of a colony of beavers at work. To be sure, they were hardly as silent and demure as those wonderful creatures, nor were they by any means as diligent. To tell the truth they were somewhat inclined to be lazy, but a perfect tumult of hilarity prevailed; and they worked together so unitedly, and seemed actuated by such an instinct of friendliness, that it was truly beautiful to behold. Not

How now! they shouted; Dar'st thou measure this our god! That's for us. Aye, priests—well, how long do ye make him, then?

all evil, to crazy Ahab, were visibly personified, and made practically assailable in Moby Dick. He piled upon the whale's white hump the sum of all the general rage and hate felt by his whole race from Adam down; and then, as if his chest had been a mortar, he burst his hot heart's shell upon it.

Such events cannot be ignored, but there is a considerate way of historically treating them. If a well-constituted individual refrains from blazoning aught amiss or calamitous in his family, a nation in the like circumstance may without reproach be equally discreet. Though

That mortal man should feed upon the creature that feeds his lamp