Herman Melville Quotes

Give not thyself up, then, to fire, lest it invert thee, deaden thee; as for the time it did me. There is a wisdom that is woe; but there is a woe that is madness. ~ Moby Dick by Herman Melville Hereby perhaps Stubb indirectly hinted, that though man loved his fellow, yet man is a money-making animal, which propensity too often interferes with his benevolence. ~ Moby Dick by Herman Melville Though amid all the smoking horror and diabolism of a sea-fight, sharks will be seen longingly gazing up to the ship's decks, like hungry dogs round a table where red meat is being carved, ready to bolt down every killed man that is tossed to them. ~ Moby Dick by Herman Melville "Start her, now; give 'em the long and strong stroke, Tashtego. Start her, Tash, my boy--start her, all; but keep cool, keep cool--cucumbers is the word--easy, easy--only start her like grim death and grinning devils, and raise the buried dead perpendicular out of their graves, boys--that's all. Start her!" ~ Moby Dick by Herman Melville Yet habit--strange thing! what cannot habit accomplish? ~ Moby Dick by Herman Melville No mercy, no power but its own controls it. Panting and snorting like a mad battle steed that has lost its rider, the masterless ocean overruns the globe. ~ Moby Dick by Herman Melville Yea, foolish mortals, Noah's flood is not yet subsided; two thirds of the fair world it yet covers. ~ Moby Dick by Herman Melville However baby man may brag of his science and skill, and however much, in a flattering future, that science and skill may augment; yet for ever and for ever, to the crack of doom, the sea will insult and murder him, and pulverize the stateliest, stiffest frigate he can make; nevertheless, by the continual repetition of these very impressions, man has lost that sense of the full awfulness of the sea which aboriginally belongs to it. ~ Moby Dick by Herman Melville "They think me mad--Starbuck does; but I'm demoniac, I am madness maddened! That wild madness that's only calm to comprehend itself!" ~ Moby Dick by Herman Melville Is he mad? Anyway there's something on his mind, as sure as there must be something on a deck when it cracks. ~ Moby Dick by Herman Melville