Quotes from Herman Melville

It is hard to be finite upon an infinite subject, and all subjects are infinite.

One of the coolest and wisest hours a man has, is just after he awakes in the morning.

It is better to fail in originality, than to succeed in imitation. He who has never failed somewhere, that man can not be great. Failure is the true test of greatness.

Any appellative at all savouring of arbitrary rank is unsuitable to a man of liberal and catholic mind.

There never was a great man yet who spent all his life inland.

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

Better be an old maid, a woman with herself as a husband, than the wife of a fool; and Solomon more than hints that all men are fools; and every wise man knows himself to be one.

When the passage "All men are born free and equal," when that passage was being written were not some of the signers legalised owners of slaves?

Only the man who says no is free

The only true infidelity is for a live man to vote himself dead.

And what is it, thought I, after all! It's only his outside; a man can be honest in any sort of skin.

There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes his whole universe for a vast practical joke.

There are two places in the world where men can most effectively disappear - the city of London and the South Seas.

Man is a money-making animal, which propensity too often interferes with his benevolence.

There is something wrong about the man who wants help. There is somewhere a deep defect, a want, in brief, a need, a crying need, somewhere about that man.

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.

Indolence is heaven 's ally here, And energy the child of hell : The Good Man pouring from his pitcher clear But brims the poisoned well.

It may seem strange that of all men sailors should be tinkering at their last wills and testaments, but there are no people in the world more fond of that diversion.

Man, in the ideal, is so noble and so sparkling, such a grand and glowing creature, that over any ignominious blemish in him all his fellows should run to throw their costliest robes.

Where do murderers go, man! Who's to doom, when the judge himself is dragged to the bar?

Some dying men are the most tyrannical; and certainly, since they will shortly trouble us so little for evermore, the poor fellows ought to be indulged.

Surely a gentle sister is the second best gift to a man; and it is first in point of occurrence; for the wife comes after.

Art is the objectification of feeling.

Is there some principal of nature which states that we never know the quality of what we have until it is gone?