Quote

Old age is always wakeful as if, the longer linked with life, the less man has to do with aught that looks like death.

Herman Melville

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Like
Age
Less
Death
Wakeful
Looks
Aught
Always
Insomnia
Men
Linked
Time
Youth
Life
Longer

More quotes by Herman Melville

Image
Beneath those stars is a universe of gliding monsters.
Herman Melville
Image
He, who, in view of its inconsistencies, says of human nature the same that, in view of its contrasts, is said of the divine nature, that it is past finding out, thereby evinces a better appreciation of it than he who, by always representing it in a clear light, leaves it to be inferred that he clearly knows all about it.
Herman Melville
Image
When beholding the tranquil beauty and brilliancy of the ocean’s skin, one forgets the tiger heart that pants beneath it and would not willingly remember that this velvet paw but conceals a remorseless fang.
Herman Melville
Image
...The silent reminiscence of hardships departed, is sweeter than the presence of delight.
Herman Melville
Image
...that one most perilous and long voyage ended, only begins a second and a second ended, only begins a third, and so on, for ever and for aye. Such is the endlessness, yea, the intolerableness of all earthly effort.
Herman Melville
Image
All Profound things, and emotions of things are preceded and attended by Silence.
Herman Melville
Image
A smile is the chosen vehicle of all ambiguities.
Herman Melville
Image
The consciousness of being deemed dead, is next to the presumable unpleasantness of being so in reality. One feels like his own ghost unlawfully tenanting a defunct carcass.
Herman Melville
Image
There seems no reason why patriotism and narrowness should go together, or why intellectual impartiality should be confounded with political trimming, or why serviceable truth should keep cloistered be a cause not partisan.
Herman Melville
Image
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.
Herman Melville
Image
A true military officer is in one particular like a true monk. Not with more self-abnegation will the latter keep his vows of monastic obedience than the former his vows of allegiance to martial duty.
Herman Melville
Image
He who goes oftenest round Cape Horn goes the most circumspectly.
Herman Melville
Image
Nothing so aggravates an earnest person as a passive resistance.
Herman Melville
Image
All wars are boyish, and are fought by boys.
Herman Melville
Image
The phantom-host has faded quite, Splendor and Terror gone-- Portent or promise--and gives way To pale, meek Dawn.
Herman Melville
Image
Think of it. To go down to posterity as a 'man who lived among the cannibals.'
Herman Melville
Image
The symmetry of form attainable in pure fiction can not so readily be achieved in a narration essentially having less to do with fable than with fact. Truth uncompromisingly told will always have its ragged edges.
Herman Melville
Image
He knows himself, and all that's in him, who knows adversity.
Herman Melville
Image
...a man of true science uses few hard words, and those only when none other will answer his purpose Where as the smatterer in science...thinks that by mouthing hard words he understands hard things.
Herman Melville
Image
Who in the rainbow can draw the line where the violet tint ends and the orange tint begins? Distinctly we see the difference of the colors, but where exactly does the one first blendingly enter into the other? So with sanity and insanity.
Herman Melville