Quote

The drama's done. Why then here does any one step forth? — Because one did survive the wreck.

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
Drama
Step
Steps
Doe
Done
Wreck
Wrecks
Forth
Survive

More quotes by Herman Melville

Image
Hell is an idea first born on an undigested apple dumpling.
Herman Melville
Image
But are sailors, frequenters of fiddlers' greens, without vices? No but less often than with landsmen do their vices, so called, partake of crookedness of heart, seeming less to proceed from viciousness than exuberance of vitality after long constraint: frank manifestations in accordance with natural law.
Herman Melville
Image
I am, as I am whether hideous, or handsome, depends upon who is made judge.
Herman Melville
Image
Be sure of this, O young ambition, all mortal greatness is but disease.
Herman Melville
Image
for there is no folly of the beast of the earth which is not infinitely outdone by the madness of men
Herman Melville
Image
Is he mad? Anyway there's something on his mind, as sure as there must be something on a deck when it cracks.
Herman Melville
Image
True places are not found on maps.
Herman Melville
Image
God help thee, old man, thy thoughts have created a creature in thee and he whose intense thinking thus makes him a Prometheus a vulture feeds upon that heart for ever that vulture the very creature he creates.
Herman Melville
Image
Will you, or will you not, quit me? I now demanded in a sudden passion, advancing close to him. I would prefer not to quit you, he replied, gently emphasizing the not.
Herman Melville
Image
Top-heavy was the ship as a dinnerless student with all Aristotle in his head.
Herman Melville
Image
It may seem strange that of all men sailors should be tinkering at their last wills and testaments, but there are no people in the world more fond of that diversion.
Herman Melville
Image
As for me, I am tormented with an everlasting itch for things remote. I love to sail forbidden seas, and land on barbarous coasts.
Herman Melville
Image
Is it possible, after all, that spite of bricks and shaven faces, this world we live in is brimmed with wonders, and I and all mankind, beneath our garbs of common-placeness, conceal enigmas that the stars themselves, and perhaps the highest seraphim can not resolve?
Herman Melville
Image
I could...see in Emerson...that had he lived in those days when the world was made, he might have offered some valuable suggestions.
Herman Melville
Image
Truth uncompromisingly told will always have its ragged edges.
Herman Melville
Image
Our souls belong to our bodies, not our bodies to our souls.
Herman Melville
Image
Standing navies, as well as standing armies, serve to keep alive the spirit of war even in the meek heart of peace. In its very embers and smoulderings, they nourish that fatal fire, and half-pay officers, as the priests of Mars, yet guard the temple, though no god be there.
Herman Melville
Image
As with ships, so with men he who turns his back to his foe gives him an advantage.
Herman Melville
Image
Both the ancestry and posterity of Grief go further than the ancestry and posterity of Joy.
Herman Melville
Image
We die, because we live.
Herman Melville