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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.

Herman Melville

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Herman Melville
Age: 72 †
Born: 1819
Born: August 1
Died: 1891
Died: September 28
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Manhattan borough
New York City
Hermann Melville
Herman Melvill
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More quotes by Herman Melville

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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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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
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Let faith oust fact let fancy oust memory I look deep down and do believe.
Herman Melville
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In their precise tracings-out and subtle causations, the strongest and fieriest emotions of life defy all analytical insight.
Herman Melville
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Of all human events, perhaps, the publication of a first volume of verses is the most insignificant but though a matter of no moment to the world, it is still of some concern to the author.
Herman Melville
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...that one most perilous and long voyage ended, only begins a second and a second ended, only begins a third, and so on, for ever and for aye. Such is the endlessness, yea, the intolerableness of all earthly effort.
Herman Melville
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There are some persons in this world, who, unable to give better proof of being wise, take a strange delight in showing what they think they have sagaciously read in mankind by uncharitable suspicions of them.
Herman Melville
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Strange as it may seem, there is nothing in which a young and beautiful female appears to more advantage than in the art of smoking.
Herman Melville
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He who goes oftenest round Cape Horn goes the most circumspectly.
Herman Melville
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We are not a nation, so much as a world for unless we claim all the world for our sire, like Melchisedec, we are without father or mother.
Herman Melville
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A true military officer is in one particular like a true monk. Not with more self-abnegation will the latter keep his vows of monastic obedience than the former his vows of allegiance to martial duty.
Herman Melville
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But I shall follow the endless, winding way, — the flowing river in the cave of man careless whither I be led, reckless where I land.
Herman Melville
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For whatever is truly wondrous and fearful in man, never yet was put into words or books.
Herman Melville
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Students of history are horror-struck at the massacres of old but in the shambles, men are being murdered to-day.
Herman Melville
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All deep, earnest thinking is but the intrepid effort of the soul to keep the open independence of her sea, while the wildest winds of heaven and earth conspire to cast her on the treacherous, slavish shore.
Herman Melville
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Yea, foolish mortals, Noah's flood is not yet subsided two thirds of the fair world it yet covers.
Herman Melville
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As in digging for precious metals in the mines, much earthy rubbish has first to be troublesomely handled and thrown out so, in digging in one's soul for the fine gold of genius, much dullness and common-place is first brought to light.
Herman Melville
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That mortal man who hath more of joy than sorrow in him, that mortal man cannot be true--not true, or undeveloped.
Herman Melville
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Whenever we discover a dislike in us, toward any one, we should ever be a little suspicious of ourselves.
Herman Melville
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There are times when even the most potent governor must wink at transgression, in order to preserve the laws inviolate for the future.
Herman Melville