Herman Melville (1 August 1819 – 28 September 1891 / New York City, New York)

''The god Janus never had two more decidedly different faces than your sea captain.''

''If not against us, nature is not for us.''

''Surely a gentle sister is the second best gift to a man; and it is first in point of occurrence; for the wife comes after.''

''Let us speak, though we show all our faults and weaknesses,—for it is a sign of strength to be weak, to know it, and out with it,—not in a set way and ostentatiously, though, but incidentally and without premeditation.''

''Indolence is heaven's ally here,
And energy the child of hell:
The Good Man pouring from his pitcher clear
But brims the poisoned well.''

''We are only what we are; not what we would be; nor every thing we hope for. We are but a step in a scale, that reaches further above us than below.''

''There is something in the breast of almost every man, which at bottom takes offense at the attentions of any other man offered to a woman, the hope of whose nuptial love he himself may have discarded. Fain would a man selfishly appropriate all the hearts which have ever in any way confessed themselves his.''

''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?''

''Found a family, build a state,
The pledged event is still the same:
Matter in end will never abate
His ancient brutal claim.''

'''Tis no great valor to perish sword in hand, and bravado on lip; cased all in panoply complete. For even the alligator dies in his mail, and the swordfish never surrenders. To expire, mild-eyed, in one's bed, transcends the death of Epaminondas.''