We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men. – Herman Melville
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. – Herman Melville
He piled upon the whale’s white hump the sum of all the general rage and hate felt by his whole race from Adam down; and then, as if his chest had been a mortar, he burst his hot heart’s shell upon it. – Herman Melville
In this world, shipmates, sin that pays its way can travel freely, and without passport; whereas Virtue, if a pauper, is stopped at all frontiers. – Herman Melville
There is no dignity in wickedness, whether in purple or rags; and hell is a democracy of devils, where all are equals. – Herman Melville
Toil is man’s allotment; toil of brain, or toil of hands, or a grief that’s more than either, the grief and sin of idleness. – Herman Melville
Is there some principal of nature which states that we never know the quality of what we have until it is gone? – Herman Melville
Hope is the struggle of the soul, breaking loose from what is perishable, and attesting her eternity. – Herman Melville
Truth is the silliest thing under the sun. Try to get a living by the Truth and go to the Soup Societies. Heavens! Let any clergyman try to preach the Truth from its very stronghold, the pulpit, and they would ride him out of his church on his own pulpit bannister. – Herman Melville
There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes his whole universe for a vast practical joke. – Herman Melville
Old age is always wakeful; as if, the longer linked with life, the less man has to do with aught that looks like death. – Herman Melville
To the last, I grapple with thee; From Hell’s heart, I stab at thee; For hate’s sake, I spit my last breath at thee. – Herman Melville
To know how to grow old is the master work of wisdom, and one of the most difficult chapters in the great art of living. – Herman Melville Henri Frederic Amiel