Quotes from Herman Melville

I'm demonaic, I am madness maddened! That wild madness that's only calm to comprehend itself!

Starbuck, of late I've felt strangely moved to thee; ever since that hour we both saw—thou know'st what, in one another's eyes. But in this matter of the whale, be the front of thy face to me as the palm of this hand—a lipless, unfeatured blank.

La meditación y el agua están emparejadas para siempre.

Aucun volume gros et durable ne pourra jamais être écrit sur la puce ; bien que beaucoup s'y soient essayés

We felt very nice and snug, the more so since it was so chilly out of doors; indeed out of bed-clothes too, seeing that there was no fire in the room. The more so, I say, because truly to enjoy bodily warmth, some small part of you must be cold, for there is no quality in this world that is not what it is merely by contrast. Nothing exists in itself. If you flatter yourself that you are all over comfortable, and have been so a long time, then you cannot be said to be comfortable any more.

even so, amid the tornadoed Atlantic of my being, do I myself still for ever centrally disport in mute calm; and while ponderous planets of unwaning woe revolve round me, deep down and deep inland there I still bathe me in eternal mildness of joy.

Prayer draws us near to our own souls.

gemideki herkes son derece iyi insanlard?. K?sa yaÅŸayan, neÅŸeli ölen türden.

Heaven have mercy on us all — Presbyterians and Pagans alike — for we are all somehow dreadfully cracked about the head, and sadly need mending.

Ho, ho! from all your furthest bounds, pour ye now in, ye bold billows of my whole foregone life, and top this one piled comber of my death! Towards thee I roll, thou all-destroying but unconquering whale; to the last I grapple with thee; from hell's heart I stab at thee; for hate's sake I spit my last breath at thee.

Speaking of bones recalls an ugly custom of theirs, now obsolete—that of making fish-hooks and gimlets out of those of their enemies. This beats the Scandinavians turning people's skulls into cups and saucers. But

De tierra adentro todos, llegan de avenidas y callejas, de calles y paseos; del Norte, Este, Sur y Oeste. Pero ahí se unen todos. Decidme ¿les atrae hacia aquí el poder magnético de las agujas de las brújulas de todos estos barcos?

that this pertinacious pursuit of one particular whale

eternal blue noon;

What's all this fuss I have been making about, thought I to myself—the man's a human being just as I am: he has just as much reason to fear me, as I have to be afraid of him. Better sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunken Christian.

Es realmente maravillosa la cortés premura con que el hombre recibe dinero, si se considera que creemos en serio que el dinero es la raíz de todos los males terrenales.

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.

This warp seemed necessity; and here, thought I, with my own hand I ply my own shuttle and weave my own destiny into these unalterable threads.

Be it known that, waiving all argument, I take the good old fashioned ground that the whale is a fish.

in a whaler wonders soon wane.

Nor is the history of fanatics half so striking in respect to the measureless self-deception of the fanatic himself, as his measureless power of deceiving and bedevilling so many others.

Yes; all these brave houses and flowery gardens came from the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans. One and all, they were harpooned and dragged up hither from the bottom of the sea. Can Herr Alexander perform a feat like that?

Sueño con navegar por mares prohibidos y abordar costas bárbaras. Por no ignorar lo que es bueno, me doy cuenta en seguida de los horrores, pero puedo mantenerme en su compañía, si me dejan, ya que esta bien mantenerse en términos amistosos con todos los residentes del lugar en que uno se aloja.

La ignorancia engendra el miedo.