Herman Melville Quotes: 13

• It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation.

• Hope is the struggle of the soul, breaking loose from what is perishable, and attesting her eternity.

• I know not all that may be coming, but be it what it will, I'll go to it laughing.

  Moby-Dick; or, The Whale

• Better to sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunk Christian.

  Moby-Dick; or, The Whale

• Art is the objectification of feeling.

• Ignorance is the parent of fear.

  Moby-Dick; or, The Whale

• To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme.

• Cannibals? Who is not a cannibal? I tell you it will be more tolerable for the Fejee that salted down a lean missionary in his cellar against a coming famine; it will be more tolerable for that provident Fejee, I say, in the day of judgement, than for thee, civilized and enlightened gourmand, who nailest geese to the ground and feastest on their bloated livers in thy pate de fois gras.

  Moby Dick

• Ah, happiness courts the light so we deem the world is gay. But misery hides aloof so we deem that misery there is none.

  Bartleby the Scrivener

• To know how to grow old is the master work of wisdom, and one of the most difficult chapters in the great art of living.

• Friendship at first sight, like love at first sight, is said to be the only truth.

• So, when on one side you hoist in Locke's head, you go over that way; but now, on the other side, hoist in Kant's and you come back again; but in very poor plight. Thus, some minds for ever keep trimming boat. Oh, ye foolish! throw all these thunder-heads overboard, and then you will float light and right.

  Moby-Dick; or, The Whale

• …for it is often to be observed of the shallower men, that they are the very last to despond. It is the glory of the bladder that nothing can sink it; it is the reproach of a box of treasure, that once overboard it must drown

  Pierre: or, the Ambiguities