Herman Melville Quotations | Page 4

See with what entire freedom the whaleman takes his handful of lamps-often but old bottles and vials, though. ... He burns, too, the purest of oil. ... It is sweet as early grass butter in April. He goes and hunts for his oil, so as to be sure of its freshness and genuineness, even as the traveler on the prairie hunts up his own supper of game.

All wars are boyish, and are fought by boys.

Let America first praise mediocrity even, in her children, before she praises... the best excellence in the children of any other land.

We may have civilized bodies and yet barbarous souls.

Surely no mere mortal who has at all gone down into himself will ever pretend that his slightest thought or act solely originates in his own defined identity.

The eyes are the gateway to the soul.

All things that God would have us do are hard for us to do--remember that--and hence, he oftener commands us than endeavours to persuade.

Dollars damn me; and the malicious Devil is forever grinning in upon me, holding the door ajar. ... What I feel most moved to write, that is banned - it will not pay. Yet, altogether, write the other way I cannot. So the product is a final hash, and all my books are botches.

We Americans are the peculiar, chosen people - the Israel of our time; we bear the ark of the liberties of the world.

Let me look into a human eye; it is better than to gaze into sea or sky; better than to gaze upon God.