Quotations From HERMAN MELVILLE

» More about Herman Melville on Poemhunter

• 281.

  A hermitage in the forest is the refuge of the narrow-minded misanthrope; a hammock on the ocean is the asylum for the generous distressed.

  Herman Melville (1819-1891), U.S. author. Israel Potter (1855), ch. 2, The Writings of Herman Melville, vol. 8, eds. Harrison Hayford, Hershel Parker, and G. Thomas Tanselle (1982).
  
  Read more quotations about / on: ocean, forest
• 282.

  Thou wine art the friend of the friendless, though a foe to all.

  Herman Melville (1819-1891), U.S. author. Mardi (1849), ch. 85, The Writings of Herman Melville, vol. 3, eds. Harrison Hayford, Hershel Parker, and G. Thomas Tanselle (1970). Spoken by King Donjalolo.
  
  Read more quotations about / on: friend
• 283.

  Truth uncompromisingly told will always have its ragged edges.

  Herman Melville (1819-1891), U.S. author. Billy Budd, Sailor (c. 1889), ch. 28, eds. Harrison Hayford and Merton M. Sealts, Jr. (1962).
  
  Read more quotations about / on: truth
• 284.

  Man, in the ideal, is so noble and so sparkling, such a grand and glowing creature, that over any ignominious blemish in him all his fellows should run to throw their costliest robes.

  Herman Melville (1819-1891), U.S. author. Moby-Dick (1851), ch. 26, The Writings of Herman Melville, vol. 6, eds. Harrison Hayford, Hershel Parker, and G. Thomas Tanselle (1988).
• 285.

  Of the quaking recruit, three pitched battles make a grim grenadier; and he who shrank from the muzzle of a cannon, is now ready to yield his mustache for a sponge.

  Herman Melville (1819-1891), U.S. author. Mardi (1849), ch. 9, The Writings of Herman Melville, vol. 3, eds. Harrison Hayford, Hershel Parker, and G. Thomas Tanselle (1970).
• 286.

  Oath and anchors equally will drag; nought else abides on fickle earth but unkept promises of joy.

  Herman Melville (1819-1891), U.S. author. "The Encantadas" (1854), Sketch Eighth, The Piazza Tales and Other Prose Pieces 1839-1860, The Writings of Herman Melville, vol. 9, eds. Harrison Hayford, Alma A. MacDougall, and G. Thomas Tanselle (1987).
  
  Read more quotations about / on: joy
• 287.

  In metropolitan cases, the love of the most single-eyed lover, almost invariably, is nothing more than the ultimate settling of innumerable wandering glances upon some one specific object.

  Herman Melville (1819-1891), U.S. author. Pierre (1852), bk. XV, The Writings of Herman Melville, vol. 7, eds. Harrison Hayford, Hershel Parker, and G. Thomas Tanselle (1971).
  
  Read more quotations about / on: love
• 288.

  All truth is profound.

  Herman Melville (1819-1891), U.S. author. Moby-Dick (1851), ch. 41, The Writings of Herman Melville, vol. 6, eds. Harrison Hayford, Hershel Parker, and G. Thomas Tanselle (1988).
  
  Read more quotations about / on: truth