Herman Melville (August 1, 1819 – September 28, 1891) was an American novelist, short story writer, and poet of the American Renaissance period. Here is our collection of Herman Melville Quotes that will inspire your life for greatness.
A smile is the chosen vehicle of all ambiguities.
– Herman Melville
Herman Melville Quotes
1. “Truth uncompromisingly told will always have its jagged edges.” – Herman Melville
2. “A man thinks that by mouthing hard words he understands hard things.” – Herman Melville
3. “It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation.” – Herman Melville
4. “Ignorance is the parent of fear.” – Herman Melville
5. “We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men.” – Herman Melville
6. “Art is the objectification of feeling.” – Herman Melville
7. “Hope is the struggle of the soul, breaking loose from what is perishable, and attesting her eternity.” – Herman Melville
8. “There is sorrow in the world, but goodness too; and goodness that is not greenness, either, no more than sorrow is.” – Herman Melville
9. “I know not all that may be coming, but be it what it will, I’ll go to it laughing.” – Herman Melville
10. “It is the easiest thing in the world for a man to look as if he had a great secret in him.” – Herman Melville
11. “Beneath those stars is a universe of gliding monsters.” – Herman Melville
12. “Better to sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunk Christian.” – Herman Melville
13. “Real strength never impairs beauty or harmony, but it often bestows it, and in everything imposingly beautiful, strength has much to do with the magic.” – Herman Melville
14. “All we discover has been with us since the sun began to roll; and much we discover, is not worth the discovering.” – Herman Melville
15. “A laugh’s the wisest, easiest answer to all that’s queer.” – Herman Melville
16. “War being the greatest of evils, all its accessories necessarily partake of the same character.” – Herman Melville
17. “Nothing so aggravates an earnest person as a passive resistance.” – Herman Melville
18. “I try all things, I achieve what I can.” – Herman Melville
19. “Truth is in things, and not in words.” – Herman Melville
20. “To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme.” – Herman Melville
21. “If you can get nothing better out of the world, get a good dinner out of it, at least.” – Herman Melville
22. “Youth is the time when hearts are large.” – Herman Melville
23. “Whatever fortune brings, don’t be afraid of doing things.” – Herman Melville
24. “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
25. “It is not down in any map; true places never are.” – Herman Melville
26. “The sweetest joys of life grow in the very jaws of its perils.” – Herman Melville
27. “Amity itself can only be maintained by reciprocal respect, and true friends are punctilious equals.” – Herman Melville
28. “He who has never failed somewhere, that man can not be great.” – Herman Melville
29. “If you can get nothing better out of the world, get a good dinner out of it, at least.” – Herman Melville
30. “You know nothing till you know all; which is the reason we never know any thing.” – Herman Melville
31. “It is impossible to talk or to write without apparently throwing oneself helplessly open.” – Herman Melville
32. “Do not presume, well-housed, well-warmed, and well-fed, to criticize the poor” – Herman Melville
33. “See how elastic our prejudices grow when once love comes to bend them.” – Herman Melville
34. “There is no quality in this world that is not what it is merely by contrast. Nothing exists in itself.” – Herman Melville
35. “For whatever is truly wondrous and fearful in man, never yet was put into words or books.” – Herman Melville
36. “A good laugh is a mighty good thing, a rather too scarce a good thing.” – Herman Melville
37. “An utterly fearless man is a far more dangerous comrade than a coward.” – Herman Melville
38. “All mortal greatness is but disease.” – Herman Melville
39. “Is there some principal of nature which states that we never know the quality of what we have until it is gone?” – Herman Melville
40. “The march of conquest through wild provinces, may be the march of Mind; but not the march of Love.” – Herman Melville
