Quotes from Herman Melville

And so, through all the thick mists of the dim doubts in my mind, divine intuitions now and then shoot, enkindling my fog with a heavenly ray. And for this I thank God; for all have doubts; many deny; but doubts or denials, few along with them, have intuitions. Doubts of all things earthly, and intuitions of some things heavenly; this combination makes neither believer nor infidel, but makes a man who regards them both with equal eye.

But all the things that God would have us do are hard for us to do -- remember that -- and hence, he oftener commands us than endeavors to persuade. And if we obey God, we must disobey ourselves; and it is in this disobeying ourselves, wherein the hardness of obeying God consists.

Out of the trunk, the branches grow; out of them, the twigs. So, in productive subjects, grow the chapters.

I leave eternity to Thee; for what is man that he should live out the life-time of his God?

Queequeg explained to me that his world was very different from ours. However, one thing he learned quickly, was that within all groups of people there are kind men and there are unkind men.

That mortal man who hath more of joy than sorrow in him, that mortal man cannot be true — not true, or undeveloped. With books the same. The truest of all men was the Man of Sorrows, and the truest of all books is Solomon's, and Ecclesiastes is the fine hammered steel of woe. "All is vanity." ALL. This wilful world hath not got hold of unchristian Solomon's wisdom yet.

I love to sail forbidden seas and land on barbarous coasts.

But this whole world is a preposterous one, with many preposterous people in it.

This slavery breeds ugly passions in man.

Men may seem detestable as joint stock-companies and nations; knaves, fools, and murderers there may be; men may have mean and meagre faces; but 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.

But Faith, like a jackal, feeds among the tombs, and even from these dead doubts she gathers her most vital hope. (Moby Dick; Chap 7 p36)

Oh, thou clear spirit, of thy fire thou madest me, and like a true child of fire, I breathe it back to thee.