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As with ships, so with men he who turns his back to his foe gives him an advantage.
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
Men
Foe
Ships
Advantage
Gives
Turns
Back
Giving
More quotes by Herman Melville
The sweetest joys of life grow in the very jaws of its perils.
Herman Melville
Think of it. To go down to posterity as a 'man who lived among the cannibals.'
Herman Melville
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
A noble craft, but somehow a most melancholy! All noble things are touched with that.
Herman Melville
Both the ancestry and posterity of Grief go further than the ancestry and posterity of Joy.
Herman Melville
Our souls belong to our bodies, not our bodies to our souls.
Herman Melville
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
Ah, happiness courts the light so we deem the world is gay. But misery hides aloof so we deem that misery there is none.
Herman Melville
I know not all that may be coming, but be it what it will, I'll go to it laughing.
Herman Melville
You cannot spill a drop of American blood without spilling the blood of the whole world.... We are not a nation, so much as a world.
Herman Melville
One of the coolest and wisest hours a man has, is just after he awakes in the morning.
Herman Melville
It is the horrible texture of a fabric that should be woven of ships' cables and hawsers. A Polar wind blows through it, and birds of prey hover over it.
Herman Melville
I cherish the greatest respect towards everybody's religious obligations, no matter how comical.
Herman Melville
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
Thus it often is, that the constant friction of illiberal minds wears out at last the best resolves of the more generous.
Herman Melville
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
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
Dream tonight of peacock tails, Diamond fields and spouter whales. Ills are many, blessing few, But dreams tonight will shelter you.
Herman Melville
The entire merit of a man can never be made known nor the sum of his demerits, if he have them. We are only known by our names as letters sealed up, we but read each other's superscriptions.
Herman Melville
I would prefer not to.
Herman Melville
