Herman Melville
Herman Melville
Herman Melvillewas an American novelist, short story writer, and poet of the American Renaissance period best known for Typee, a romantic account of his experiences in Polynesian life, and his whaling novel Moby-Dick. His work was almost forgotten during his last thirty years. His writing draws on his experience at sea as a common sailor, exploration of literature and philosophy, and engagement in the contradictions of American society in a period of rapid change. He developed a complex, baroque style:...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth1 August 1819
CityNew York City, NY
CountryUnited States of America
Grub, ho! now cried the landlord, flinging open a door, and in we went to breakfast.
Methinks that what they call my shadow here on earth is my true substance. Methinks that in looking at things spiritual, we are too much like oysters observing the sun through the water, and thinking that thick water the thinnest of air.
Genius, all over the world, stands hand in hand, and one shock of recognition runs the whole circle round.
The path to my fixed purpose is laid with iron rails whereon my soul is grooved to run
We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with ourfellowmen? and along those fibers, as sympathetic threads, our actions run ascauses, and they come back to us as effects.
We cannot live for ourselves alone. Our lives are connected by a thousand invisible threads, and along these sympathetic fibers, our actions run as causes and return to us as results.
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
Better sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunken Christian.
Whatever fortune brings, don't be afraid of doing things.
This, shipmates, this is that other lesson; and woe to that pilot of the living God who slights it.
No utter surprise can come to him Who reaches Shakespeare's core; That which we seek and shun is there - Man's final lore
So philosophers so throughly comprehend us as horses.
Miserable man! Oh! most contemptible and worthy of all scorn; with slouched hat and guilty eye, skulking from his God; prowling among the shipping like a vile burglar hastening to cross the seas.
We are not a nation, so much as a world; for unless we claim all the world for our sire, like Melchisedec, we are without father or mother.