And yet a child’s utter innocence is but its blank ignorance, and the innocence more or less wanes as intelligence waxes.

— Herman Melville

... an utterly fearless man is a far more dangerous comrade than a coward.

— Herman Melville

Aren't half our lives spent in reproaches for foregone actions, of the true nature and consequences of which we were wholly ignorant at the time?

— Herman Melville

Art is the objectification of feeling.

— Herman Melville

A smile is the chosen vehicle of all ambiguities.

— Herman Melville

At last, I see it, I feel it; I penetrate to the predestined purpose of my life. I am content. Others may have loftier parts to enact; but my mission in this world, Bartleby, is to furnish you with office-room for such period as you may see fit to remain. I believe that this wise and blessed frame of mind would have continued with me, had it not been for the unsolicited and uncharitable remarks obtruded upon me by my professional friends who visited the rooms. But thus it often is, that the constant friction of illiberal minds wears out at last the best resolves of the more generous.

— Herman Melville

At last the anchor was up, the sails were set, and off we glided. It was a short, cold Christmas; and as the short northern day merged into night, we found ourselves almost broad upon the wintry ocean, whose freezing spray cased us in ice, as in polished armor. The long rows of teeth on the bulwarks glistened in the moonlight; and like the white ivory tusks of some huge elephant, vast curving icicles depended on from the bows.

— Herman Melville

At such times, under an abated sun; afloat all day upon smooth, slow heaving swells; seated in his boat, light as a birch canoe; and so sociably mixing with the soft waves themselves, that like hearth-stone cats they purr against the gunwale; 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.

— Herman Melville

A whale ship was my Yale College and my Harvard.

— Herman Melville

Aye, aye, it must be so. I've oversailed him. How, got the start? Aye, he's chasing ME now; not I, HIM--that's bad

— Herman Melville