Quotes from Herman Melville

Hope is the struggle of the soul, breaking loose from what is perishable, and attesting her eternity.

No voice, no low, no howl is heard; the chief sound of life here is a hiss.

Can it be, that the Greek grammarians invented their dual number for the particular benefit of twins?

Dies, all dies!The grass it dies, but in vernal rainUp it springs and it lives again;Over and over, again and againIt lives, it dies and it lives again.

Woe to him who seeks to pour oil upon the waters when God has brewed them into a gale! Woe to him who seeks to please rather than to appall!

All wars are boyish, and are fought by boys.

A man with some evil design, would he not be likely to speak well of that stupidity which was blind to his depravity, and malign that intelligence from which it might not be hidden?

And this is what ye have shipped for, men! to chase that white whale on both sides of land, and over all sides of earth, till he spouts black blood and rolls fin out.

How it is I know not; but there is no place like a bed for confidential disclosures between friends. Man and wife, they say, there open the very bottom of their souls to each other; and some old couples often lie and chat over old times till nearly morning. Thus, then, in our hearts honeymoon, lay I and Queequeg -- a cozy, loving pair.

We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men.

We may have civilized bodies and yet barbarous souls. We are blind to the real sights of this world; deaf to its voice; and dead to its death. And not till we know, that one grief outweighs ten thousand joys will we become what Christianity is striving to make us.

It is not down on any map; true places never are.