Quotes from Herman Melville

Billy made no demur. But, indeed, any demur would have been as idle as the protest of a goldfinch popped into a cage.

the ship was rushing through the water with a vindictive sort of leaping and melancholy rapidity

well, blessed are the peacemakers, especially the fighting peacemakers

Gelgit çekilmesinde ölen adamlar vard?r, baz?lar? cezirde, diÄŸerleri ise med halinin zirvesinde ölürler. Kendimi köpüklere bat?r?lm??, çatlamak üzere olan dalga gibi hissediyorum...

Give not thyself up, then, to fire, lest it invert thee, deaden thee, as for the time it did me. There is a wisdom that is woe; but there is a woe that is madness. — Herman Melville, Moby-Dick; or, The Whale

your heart beat in my ribs and mine in yours, and both in God's

There is no steady unretracing progress in this life; we do not advance through fixed gradations, and at the last one pause

But God is everywhere; Tarshish he never reached.

I was thunderstruck. For an instant I stood like the man who, pipe in mouth, was killed one cloudless afternoon long ago in Virginia, by a summer lightning; at his own warm open window he was killed, and remained leaning out there upon the dreamy afternoon, till some one touched him, when he fell.

La felicidad busca la luz, por eso nos parece que el mundo es alegre; pero el sufrimiento se esconde, por eso nos parece que no existe.

hell is an idea first born on an undigested apple-dumpling;

Non di rado accade che, quando un uomo si trova contrariato in modo inconsueto e violentemente assurdo, egli cominci a nutrir dubbi sulle sue più salde convinzioni. Egli comincia, per così dire, a dubitare vagamente che, per strana che la cosa possa sembrare, la ragione e la giustizia si trovino dall'altra parte.

The path to my fixed purpose is laid with iron rails, wheron my soul is grooved to run.

I will have no man in my boat," said Starbuck, "who is not afraid of a whale." By this, he seemed to mean, not only that the most reliable and useful courage was that which arises from the fair estimation of the encountered peril, but that an utterly fearless man is a far more dangerous comrade than a coward

a face which would have been a very fine one but for its haggardness. Whether this haggardness had aught to do with criminality, could not be determined; since, as intense heat and cold, though unlike, produce like sensations, so innocence and guilt, when, through casual association with mental pain, stamping any visible impress, use one seal--a hacked one.

For a long time, now, the circus-running sun had raced within his fiery ring, and needs no sustenance but what's in himself. So Ahab.

Who ain't a slave?

for we are all somehow dreadfully cracked about the head, and sadly need mending.

Ay! La felicidad busca la luz y por eso creemos que el mundo es alegre. Sin embargo, el sufrimiento se oculta en la distancia, y por eso pensamos que el sufrimiento no existe.

he will have no one near him but Nature herself; and her he takes to wife in the wilderness of waters, and the best of wives she is, though she keeps so many moody secrets.

you speak a world's language, jovially jabbering in the Lingua-Franca of the forecastle.

Sin embargo, a la mañana siguiente, al despertarme, me surgieron las dudas -de alguna manera, con el sueño, se me habían pasado los humos de la vanidad-. Uno de los momentos más serenos y acertados que tiene un hombre es justo por la mañana, al despertarse.

But as in landlessness alone resides the highest truth, shoreless, indefinite as God - so, better is it to perish in that howling infinite, than be ingloriously dashed upon the lee, even if that were safety! For worm-like, then, oh! who would craven crawl to land! Terrors of the terrible! Is all this agony so vain? Take heart, take heart, O Bulkington! Bear thee grimly, demigod! Up from the spray of thy ocean-perishing - straight up, leaps thy apotheosis!

every one knows that in most people's estimation, to do anything coolly is to do it genteelly.