Herman Melville Quotes

It smells like the left wing of the day of judgment. ~ Moby Dick by Herman Melville Our souls are like those orphans whose unwedded mothers die in bearing them: the secret of our paternity lies in their grave, and we must there to learn it. ~ Moby Dick by Herman Melville Out of natural courtesy he received, but did not appropriate. It was like a gift placed in the palm of an outreached hand upon which the fingers do not close. ~ Billy Budd by Herman Melville There is nothing namable but that some men will undertake to do it for pay. ~ Billy Budd by Herman Melville "Forty years after a battle it is easy for a non-combatant to reason about how it ought to have been fought. It is another thing personally and under fire to direct the fighting while involved in the obscuring smoke of it." ~ Billy Budd by Herman Melville With no power to annul the elemental evil in him, though readily enough he could hide it; apprehending the good, but powerless to be it; a nature like Claggart's surcharged with energy as such natures almost invariably are, what recourse is left to it but to recoil upon itself and like the scorpion for which the Creator alone is responsible, act out to the end the part allotted it. ~ Billy Budd by Herman Melville "This whole act's immutably decreed. 'Twas rehearsed by thee and me a billion years before this ocean rolled. Fool! I am the Fates' lieutenant; I act under orders." ~ Moby Dick by Herman Melville "Omen? omen?--the dictionary! If the gods think to speak outright to man, they will honourably speak outright; not shake their heads, and give an old wives' darkling hint." ~ Moby Dick by Herman Melville "There she blows!--there she blows! A hump like a snow-hill! It is Moby Dick!" ~ Moby Dick by Herman Melville These are the times of dreamy quietude, when beholding the tranquil beauty and brilliancy of the ocean's skin, one forgets the tiger heart that pants beneath it; and would not willingly remember, that this velvet paw but conceals a remorseless fang. ~ Moby Dick by Herman Melville