A whale ship was my Yale College and my Harvard. Herman Melville More Quotes by Herman Melville More Quotes From Herman Melville The world is forever babbling of originality; but there never yet was an original man, in the sense intended by the world; the first man himself--who according to the Rabbins was also the first author--not being an original; the only original author being God. Herman Melville god forever men And tell him to paint me a sign, with-no suicides permitted here, and no smloing in the parlor; might as well kill both birds at once. Herman Melville suicide might bird The sailor is frankness, the landsman is finesse. Life is not a game with the sailor, demanding the long head Herman Melville sailing games long Books, gentlemen, are a species of men, and introduced to them you circulate in the "very best society" that this world can furnish, without the intolerable infliction of "dressing" to go into it. In your shabbiest coat and cosiest slippers you may socially chat even with the fastidious Earl of Chesterfield, and lounging under a tree enjoy the divinest intimacy with my late lord of Verulam. Herman Melville reading men book Genius is full of trash. Herman Melville trash genius Are not half our lives spent in reproaches for foregone actions, of the true nature and consequences of which we were wholly ignorant at the time? Herman Melville ignorant half action Passion, and passion in its profoundest, is not a thing demanding a palatial stage whereon to play its part. Down among the groundlings, among the beggars and rakers of the garbage, profound passion is enacted. And the circumstances that provoke it, however trivial or mean, are no measure of its power. In the present instance the stage is a scrubbed gun deck, and one of the external provocations a man-of-war's-man's spilled soup. Herman Melville passion war mean The sailor is frankness, the landsman is finesse. Life is not a game with the sailor, demanding the long head--no intricate game of chess where few moves are made in straight-forwardness and ends are attained by indirection, an oblique, tedious, barren game hardly worth that poor candle burnt out in playing it. Herman Melville games long moving Man is a money-making animal, which propensity too often interferes with his benevolence. Herman Melville money animal men When the inhabitants of some sequestered island first descry the "big canoe" of the European rolling through the blue waters towards their shores, they rush down to the beach in crowds, and with open arms stand ready to embrace the strangers. Fatal embrace! They fold to their bosoms the vipers whose sting is destined to poison all their joys; and the instinctive feeling of love within their breasts is soon converted into the bitterest hate. Herman Melville betrayal hate beach And, as for me, if, by any possibility, there be any as yet undiscovered prime thing in me; if I shall ever deserve any real repute in that small but high hushed world which I might not be unreasonably ambitious of ; if hereafter I shall do anything that, upon the whole, a man might rather have done than to have left undone ; if, at my death, my executors, or more properly my creditors, find any precious MSS. in my desk, then here I prospectively ascribe all the honour and the glory to whaling; for a whale-ship was my Yale College and my Harvard. Herman Melville real college men Though the ancients were ignorant of the principles of Christianity there were in them the germs of its spirit. Herman Melville germs ignorant principles If not against us, nature is not for us. Herman Melville nature ifs I never fancied broiling fowls; - though once broiled, judiciously buttered, and judgmatically salted and peppered, there is no one who will speak more respectfully, not to say reverentially, of a broiled fowl than I will. Herman Melville fowl cooking speak None but a good man is really a living man, and the more good any man does, the more he really lives. All the rest is death, or belongs to it. Herman Melville men life death If I had been downright honest with myself, I would have seen very plainly in my heart that I did but half fancy being committed this way to so long a voyage, without once laying my eyes on the man who was to be the absolute dictator of it, so soon as the ship sailed out upon the open sea. But when a man suspects any wrong, it sometimes happens that if he be already involved in the matter, he insensibly strives to cover up his suspicions even from himself. And much this way it was with me. I said nothing, and tried to think nothing. Herman Melville eye heart men Were civilization itself to be estimated by some of its results, it would seem perhaps better for what we call the barbarous part of the world to remain unchanged. Herman Melville results civilization world Doesn't the devil live forever; who ever heard that the devil was dead? Did you ever see any person wearing mourning for the devil? Herman Melville mourning devil forever Thou saw'st the locked lovers when leaping from their flaming ship; heart to heart they sank beneath the exulting wave; true to each other, when heaven seemed false to them. Herman Melville ships heart heaven Think not, is my eleventh commandment; and sleep when you can, is my twelfth. Herman Melville commandments sleep thinking
