Quotes from Herman Melville

We sing; they sleep—aye, lie down there, like ground-tier butts. At 'em again! There, take this copper-pump, and hail 'em through it. Tell 'em to avast dreaming of their lasses. Tell 'em it's the resurrection; they must kiss their last, and come to judgment.

rotted down from manhood by their hopeless misery on the isle; wonted to cringe in all things to their lord, himself the worst of slaves; these wretches were now become wholly corrupted to his hands. He used them as creatures of an interior race; in short, he gaffles his four animals, and makes murderers of them; out of cowards fitly manufacturing bravoes.

rotted down from manhood by their hopeless misery on the isle; wonted to cringe in all things to their lord, himself the worst of slaves; these wretches were now become wholly corrupted to his hands. He used them as creatures of an inferior race; in short, he gaffles his four animals, and makes murderers of them; out of cowards fitly manufacturing bravoes

Ah, thought he, after good actions one's conscience is never ungrateful, however much so the benefited party may be.

In armies, navies, cities, or families, in nature herself, nothing more relaxes good order than misery.

Forehead to forehead I meet thee, this third time, Moby Dick!

What a delightful, lazy, languid time we had whilst we were thus gliding along!

Frica se na?te din ne?tiin?? [...]

orice lucru bun pe lume e aÈ™a fiindc? se afl? în contrast cu altceva. Nimic nu poate fi judecat dac? e comparat doar cu el însuÈ™i.

For the first time in my life a feeling of overpowering stinging melancholy seized me. Before, I had never experienced aught but a not-unpleasing sadness. The bond of a common humanity now drew me irresistibly to gloom.

My cheek blanches white while I write; I start at the scratch of my pen; my own mad brood of eagles devours me; fain would I unsay this audacity; but an iron-mailed hand clenches mine in a vice, and prints down every letter in my spite.

Talk not to me of blasphemy, man; I'd strike the sun if it insulted me.

Let us waive that agitated national topic, as to whether such multitudes of foreign poor should be landed on our American shores; let us waive it, with the one only thought, that if they can get here, they have God's right to come; though they bring all Ireland and her miseries with them. For the whole world is the patrimony of the whole world; there is no telling who does not own a stone in the Great Wall of China.

There is, one knows not what sweet mystery about this sea, whose gently awful stirrings seem to speak of some hidden soul beneath … for here, millions of mixed shades and shadows, drowned dreams, somnambulisms, reveries; all that we call lives and souls, lie dreaming, dreaming, still.

Is it, thought Captain Delano, that this hapless man is one of those paper captains I've known, who by policy wink at what by power they cannot put down? I know no sadder sight than a commander who has little of command but the name.

Ah, la felicidad busca la luz, por eso juzgamos que el mundo es alegre; pero el dolor se esconde en la soledad, por eso juzgamos que el dolor no existe.

Loveliness unfathomable, as ever lover saw in his young bride's eye!--Tell me not of thy teeth-tiered sharks, and thy kidnapping cannibal ways. Let faith oust fact; let fancy oust memory; I look deep down and do believe.

Para un ser sensible, la pena supone muchas veces dolor. Y cuando por fin uno se da cuenta de que esta pena no aporta una ayuda efectiva, el sentido común ordena al alma que se deshaga de ella.

For to go as a passenger you must needs have a purse, and a purse is but a rag unless you have something in it.

Casi incomprensible es también ese subalterno prekafkiano llamado Bartleby que jamás habla si no es para contestar;

The air was sultry and still, as if full of spent thunderbolts.

Yet habit - strange thing! what cannot habit accomplish?

Todavía puedo ver aquella figura, pálidamente pulcra, lastimosamente respetable, incurablemente solitaria. Era Bartleby.

But why say more? All men live enveloped in whale- lines. All are born with halters round their necks; but it is only when caught in the swift, sudden turn of death, that mortals realize the silent, subtle, ever-present perils of life.