Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotes by Herman Melville (American Novelist)

Herman Melville (1819–91) was an American novelist, poet, and short-story writer. His experiences as a common sailor aboard whaling ships formed the basis of several novels, notably Moby Dick (1851.) His other notable works include Billy Budd (1924.)

Melville was born in New York City, and after an initial voyage to Liverpool as a cabin boy, he decided upon a life at sea. The wealth of experience that he gained during his many years sailing and visiting the exotic locales of the South Pacific became the basis of his literary work. Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life (1846,) a fictionalized travel narrative, was his first book; it was also his most famous book during his lifetime.

Melville was a critical and commercial failure during his lifetime. Today, Melville is ranked with the pantheon of writers of the American Renaissance period of the 1850s.

In 1866, Melville became a deputy customs inspector in New York. He held that post for the next 19 years and, for the most part, withdrew from public and literary life writing some poetry.

More: Wikipedia READ: Works by Herman Melville

The sailor is frankness, the landsman is finesse. Life is not a game with the sailor, demanding the long head
Herman Melville

Why, ever since Adam, who has got to the meaning of this great allegory—the world? Then we pygmies must be content to have out paper allegories but ill comprehended.
Herman Melville
Topics: Philosophers, Philosophy

I saw a ship of material build
(Her standards set, her brave apparel on)
Directed as by madness mere
Against a solid iceberg steer,
Nor budge it, though the infactuate ship went down.
The impact made huge ice-cubes fall
Sullen in tons that crashed the deck;
But that one avalanche was all—
No other movement save the foundering wreck.
Along the spurs of ridges pale,
Not any slenderest shaft and frail,
A prism over glass-green gorges lone,
Toppled; or lace or traceries fine,
Nor pendant drops in grot or mine
Were jarred, when the stunned ship went down.
Nor sole the gulls in cloud that wheeled
Circling one snow-flanked peak afar,
But nearer fowl the floes that skimmed
And crystal beaches, felt no jar.
No thrill transmitted stirred the lock
Of jack-straw neddle-ice at base;
Towers indermined by waves—the block
Atilt impending—kept their place.
Seals, dozing sleek on sliddery ledges
Slipt never, when by loftier edges
Through the inertia overthrown,
The impetuous ship in bafflement went down.
Hard Berg (methought), so cold, so vast,
With mortal damps self-overcast;
Exhaling still thy dankish breath—
Adrift dissolving, bound for death;
Though lumpish thou, a lumbering one—
A lumbering lubbard loitering slow,
Impingers rue thee ad go slow
Sounding thy precipice below,
Nor stir the slimy slug that sprawls
Along thy dead indifference of walls.
Herman Melville
Topics: Patience

Challenge The challenge is not to win, but to conquer the fear. It is not the other people you have to beat, it is your self.
Herman Melville

There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes his whole universe for a vast practical joke.
Herman Melville
Topics: Oddity, Peculiarity

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 cozy, loving pair.
Herman Melville
Topics: Sleep

He offered a prayer so deeply devout that he seemed kneeling and praying at the bottom of the sea.
Herman Melville
Topics: Prayer

It is not down in any map, true places never are.
Herman Melville
Topics: Truth

People think that if a man has undergone any hardship, he should have a reward; but for my part, if I have done the hardest possible day’s work, and then come to sit down in a corner and eat my supper comfortably—why, then I don’t think I deserve any reward for my hard day’s work—for am I not now at peace? Is not my supper good?
Herman Melville
Topics: Eating, Results

Meditation and water are wedded for ever.
Herman Melville
Topics: Meditation

They talk of the dignity of work. The dignity is in leisure.
Herman Melville
Topics: Rest, Leisure

Of all the preposterous assumptions of humanity over humanity, nothing exceeds most of the criticisms made on the habits of the poor by the well-housed, well-warmed, and well-fed.
Herman Melville
Topics: Humanity

It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation.
Herman Melville
Topics: Originality, To Be Born Everyday, Creativity, Plagiarism

Some dying men are the most tyrannical; and certainly, since they will shortly trouble us so little for evermore, the poor fellows ought to be indulged.
Herman Melville
Topics: Death, Dying

In our own hearts, we mold the whole world’s hereafters; and in our own hearts we fashion our own gods.
Herman Melville
Topics: Heart

He who has never failed somewhere, that man cannot be great.
Herman Melville
Topics: Failure, Failures, Risk, Mistakes, Courage

Real strength never impairs beauty or harmony, but it often bestows it; and in everything imposingly beautiful, strength has much to do with the magic.
Herman Melville
Topics: Beauty

For whatever is truly wondrous and fearful in man, never yet was put into words or books.
Herman Melville
Topics: Literature, Books

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
Topics: Obedience

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
Topics: Humankind, Humanity

Faith, like a jackal, feeds among the tombs, and even from these dead doubts she gathers her most vital hope.
Herman Melville
Topics: Faith

‘I will have no man in my boat,’ said Starbuck, ‘who is not afraid of a whale.’ By this, he seemed to mean not only that the most reliable and useful courage was that which arises from the fair estimation of the encountered peril, but that an utterly fearless man is a far more dangerous comrade than a coward.
Herman Melville
Topics: Bravery

Toil is man’s allotment; toil of brain, or toil of hands, or a grief that’s more than either, the grief and sin of idleness.
Herman Melville
Topics: Work, Grief

Better to sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunken Christian.
Herman Melville
Topics: Drinking

The lightning flashes through my skull; mine eyeballs ache and ache; my whole beaten brain seems as beheaded, and rolling on some stunning ground.
Herman Melville
Topics: Madness

We may have civilized bodies and yet barbarous souls. We are blind to the real sights of this world; deaf to its voice; and dead to its death. And not till we know, that one grief outweighs ten thousand joys will we become what Christianity is striving to make us.
Herman Melville
Topics: Kindness

So, cutting the lashing of the waterproof match keg, after many failures Starbuck contrived to ignite the lamp in the lantern; then stretching it on a waif pole, handed it to Queequeg as the standard-bearer of this forlorn hope. There, then, he sat, holding up that imbecile candle in the heart of that almighty forlornness. There, then, he sat, the sign and symbol of a man without faith, hopelessly holding up hope in the midst of despair.
Herman Melville

In glades they meet skull after skull
Where pine cones lay-the rusted gun,
Green shoes full of bones, the mouldering coat
And cuddled up skeleton;
And scores of such. Some start as in dreams,
And comrades lost bemoan;
By the edge of those wilds Stonewall had charged-
But the year and the Man were gone.
Herman Melville
Topics: War

There is something wrong about the man who wants help. There is somewhere a deep defect, a want, in brief, a need, a crying need, somewhere about that man.
Herman Melville
Topics: Help, Assistance, Aid

A smile is the chosen vehicle of all ambiguities.
Herman Melville
Topics: Smile

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