Quote

To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme.

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
Book
Must
Writing
Fleas
Mighty
Theme
Produce
Choose
Written

More quotes by Herman Melville

Image
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
Image
Thou wine art the friend of the friendless, though a foe to all.
Herman Melville
Image
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
Image
There never was a great man yet who spent all his life inland.
Herman Melville
Image
One trembles to think of that mysterious thing in the soul, which seems to acknowledge no human jurisdiction, but in spite of the individual's own innocence self, will still dream horrid dreams, and mutter unmentionable thoughts.
Herman Melville
Image
What man who carries a heavenly soul in him, has not groaned to perceive, that unless he committed a sort of suicide as to the practical things of this world, he never can hope to regulate his earthly conduct by that same heavenly soul?
Herman Melville
Image
Better be secure under one king, than exposed to violence from twenty millions of monarchs, though oneself be one of them.
Herman Melville
Image
He knows himself, and all that's in him, who knows adversity.
Herman Melville
Image
O Death, the Consecrator! Nothing so sanctifies a name As to be written--Dead. Nothing so wins a life from blame, So covers it from wrath and shame, As doth the burial-bed.
Herman Melville
Image
True places are not found on maps.
Herman Melville
Image
Real strength never impairs beauty or harmony, but it often bestows it, and in everything imposingly beautiful, strength has much to do with the magic.
Herman Melville
Image
In a multitude of acquaintances is less security, than in one faithful friend.
Herman Melville
Image
Love's secrets, being mysteries, ever pertain to the transcendent and the infinite and so they are as airy bridges, by which ourfurther shadows pass over into the regions of the golden mists and exhalations whence all poetical, lovely thoughts are engendered, and drop into us, as though pearls should drop from rainbows.
Herman Melville
Image
I have written a wicked book, and feel spotless as the lamb.
Herman Melville
Image
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 cosy, loving pair.
Herman Melville
Image
We should, if possible, prove a teacher to posterity, instead of being the pupil of by-gone generations. More shall come after us than have gone before the world is not yet middle-aged.
Herman Melville
Image
To the last, I grapple with thee From Hell's heart, I stab at thee For hate's sake, I spit my last breath at thee.
Herman Melville
Image
Leviathan is not the biggest fish — I have heard of Krakens.
Herman Melville
Image
It is plain and demonstrable, that much ale is not good for Yankee, and operates differently upon them from what it does upon a Briton ale must be drank in a fog and a drizzle.
Herman Melville
Image
Yet habit - strange thing! what cannot habit accomplish?
Herman Melville