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Prayer draws us near to our own souls.
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
Near
Souls
Draws
Prayer
Soul
More quotes by Herman Melville
I have written a wicked book, and feel spotless as the lamb. Ineffable socialities are in me. I would sit down and dine with you and all the gods in old Rome's Pantheon. It is a strange feeling--no hopefulness is in it, no despair. Content--that is it and irresponsibility but without licentious inclination.
Herman Melville
In thoughts of the visions of the night, I saw long rows of angels in paradise, each with his hands in a jar of spermaceti.
Herman Melville
Men there are, who having quite done with the world, all its merely worldly contents are become so far indifferent, that they carelittle of what mere worldly imprudence they may be guilty.
Herman Melville
Our institutions have a potent digestion, and may in time convert and assimilate to good all elements thrown in, however originally alien.
Herman Melville
Yea, foolish mortals, Noah's flood is not yet subsided two thirds of the fair world it yet covers.
Herman Melville
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
What plays the mischief with the truth is that men will insist upon the universal application of a temporary feeling or opinion.
Herman Melville
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.
Herman Melville
I will frankly confess that after passing a few weeks in the valley of the Marquesas, I formed a higher estimate of human nature than I had ever before entertained. But, alas, since then I have been one of the crew of a man-of- war, and the pent-up wickedness of five hundred men has nearly overturned all my previous theories.
Herman Melville
It is with fiction as with religion: it should present another world, and yet one to which we feel the tie.
Herman Melville
Courage is the most common and vulgar of the virtues.
Herman Melville
We may have civilized bodies and yet barbarous souls.
Herman Melville
Surrounded as we are by the wants and woes of our fellow-men, and yet given to follow our own pleasures, regardless of their pains, are we not like people sitting up with a corpse, and making merry in the house of the dead?
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
Is there some principal of nature which states that we never know the quality of what we have until it is gone?
Herman Melville
It is the easiest thing in the world for a man to look as if he had a great secret in him.
Herman Melville
Let me look into a human eye it is better than to gaze into sea or sky better than to gaze upon God.
Herman Melville
At length I fell asleep, with the volume in my hand and never slept so sound before
Herman Melville
At last the anchor was up, the sails were set, and off we glided. It was a sharp, cold Christmas and as the short northern day merged into night, we found ourselves almost broad upon the wintry ocean, whose freezing spray cased us in ice, as in polished armor.
Herman Melville
In our man-of-war world, Life comes in at one gangway and Death goes overboard at the other. Under the man-of-war scourge, cursesmix with tears and the sigh and the sob furnish the bass to the shrill octave of those who laugh to drown buried griefs of their own.
Herman Melville