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It is impossible to talk or to write without apparently throwing oneself helplessly open.
Herman Melville
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Herman Melville
Age: 72 †
Born: 1819
Born: August 1
Died: 1891
Died: September 28
Art Collector
Essayist
Lecturer
Literary Critic
Novelist
Poet
Sailor
Teacher
Writer
Manhattan borough
New York City
Hermann Melville
Herman Melvill
Without
Apparently
Writing
Throwing
Oneself
Impossible
Open
Literature
Talk
Write
Helplessly
More quotes by Herman Melville
The fact is, that among his hunters at least, the whale would by all hands be considered a noble dish, were there not so much of him but when you come to sit down before a meat-pie nearly one hundred feet long, it takes away your appetite.
Herman Melville
Cannibalism to a certain moderate extent is practised among several of the primitive tribes in the Pacific, but it is upon the bodies of slain enemies alone and horrible and fearful as the custom is, immeasurably as it is to be abhorred and condemned, still I assert that those who indulge in it are in other respects humane and virtuous.
Herman Melville
In their precise tracings-out and subtle causations, the strongest and fieriest emotions of life defy all analytical insight.
Herman Melville
I am, as I am whether hideous, or handsome, depends upon who is made judge.
Herman Melville
No mercy, no power but its own controls it. Panting and snorting like a mad battle steed that has lost its rider, the masterless ocean overruns the globe.
Herman Melville
Poor fish of Rodondo! in your victimized confidence, you are of the number of those who inconsiderately trust, while they do not understand, human nature.
Herman Melville
Twelve o'clock! It is the natural centre, key-stone, and very heart of the day. At that hour, the sun has arrived at the top of his hill and as he seems to hang poised there a while, before coming down on the other side, it is but reasonable to suppose that he is then stopping to dine setting an eminent example to all mankind.
Herman Melville
Appalling is the soul of a man! Better might one be pushed off into the material spaces beyond the uttermost orbit of our sun, than once feel himself fairly afloat in himself.
Herman Melville
All things that God would have us do are hard for us to do--remember that--and hence, he oftener commands us than endeavours to persuade.
Herman Melville
He knows himself, and all that's in him, who knows adversity.
Herman Melville
Thinking is, or ought to be, a coolness and a calmness and our poor hearts throb, and our poor brains beat too much for that.
Herman Melville
Are there no Moravians in the Moon, that not a missionary has yet visited this poor pagan planet of ours, to civilise civilisation and christianise Christendom?
Herman Melville
Yet habit - strange thing! what cannot habit accomplish?
Herman Melville
Personal prudence, even when dictated by quite other than selfish considerations, surely is no special virtue in a military man while an excessive love of glory, impassioning a less burning impulse, the honest sense of duty, is the first.
Herman Melville
I cherish the greatest respect towards everybody's religious obligations, no matter how comical.
Herman Melville
The idea of Jehovah was born here... Out of the rude elements of the insignificant thoughts thoughts that are in all men, they reared the transcendent conception of a God.
Herman Melville
There are times when even the most potent governor must wink at transgression, in order to preserve the laws inviolate for the future.
Herman Melville
There is no quality in this world that is not what it is merely by contrast. Nothing exists in itself.
Herman Melville
There are doubts, sir, which, if man have them, it is not man that can solve them.
Herman Melville
There's something ever egotistical in mountain-tops and towers, and all other grand and lofty things.
Herman Melville
