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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

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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
Humans
Higher
Crew
Confess
Men
Week
Formed
Valley
Since
Passings
Wickedness
Five
Weeks
Previous
War
Nearly
Frankly
Pent
Nature
Passing
Theories
Overturned
Ever
Hundred
Alas
Estimate
Human
Theory
Valleys
Entertained

More quotes by Herman Melville

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Benevolent desires, after passing a certain point, can not undertake their own fulfillment without incurring the risk of evils beyond those sought to be remedied.
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Human madness is oftentimes a cunning and most feline thing
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There is sorrow in the world, but goodness too and goodness that is not greenness, either, no more than sorrow is.
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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.
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It is hard to be finite upon an infinite subject, and all subjects are infinite.
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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.
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Much of a man's character will be found betokened in his backbone. I would rather feel your spine than your skull, whoever you are. A thin joist of a spine never yet upheld a full and noble soul.
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...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.
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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.
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Better be secure under one king, than exposed to violence from twenty millions of monarchs, though oneself be one of them.
Herman Melville
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Talk not to me of blasphemy, man I'd strike the sun if it insulted me.
Herman Melville
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For, as when the red-cheeked, dancing girls, April and May, trip home to the wintry, misanthropic woods even the barest, ruggedest, most thunder-cloven old oak will at least send forth some few green sprouts, to welcome such glad-hearted visitants . . .
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Thus it often is, that the constant friction of illiberal minds wears out at last the best resolves of the more generous.
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I would prefer not to.
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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.
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Nothing so aggravates an earnest person as a passive resistance.
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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.
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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.
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In a multitude of acquaintances is less security, than in one faithful friend.
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Where is there such an one who has not a thousand times been struck with a sort of infidel idea, that whatever other worlds God may be Lord of, he is not the Lord of this for else this world would seem to give the lie to Him so utterly repugnant seem its ways to the instinctively known ways of Heaven.
Herman Melville