Come what will, one comfort's always left — that unfailing comfort is, it's all predestined.

— Herman Melville

Consider the suppleness of the sea; how its most dreaded creatures glide underwater, unapparent for the most part, and treacherously hidden beneath the loveliest tints of azure.

— Herman Melville

Consider the suppleness of the sea; how its most dreaded creatures glide underwater, unapparent for the most part, and treacherously hidden beneath the loveliest tints of azure..... Consider all this; and then turn to this green, gentle, and most docile earth; consider them both, the sea and the land; and do you not find a strange analogy to something in yourself?

— Herman Melville

Do not presume, well-housed, well-warmed, and well-fed, to criticize the poor

— Herman Melville

...flight from tyranny does not of itself insure a safe asylum, far less a happy home.

— Herman Melville

…for it is often to be observed of the shallower men, that they are the very last to respond. It is the glory of the bladder that nothing can sink it; it is the reproach of a box of treasure, that once overboard it must drown

— Herman Melville

For, thought Ahab, while even the highest earthly felicities ever have a certain signifying pettiness lurking in them, but, at bottom, all heart woes, a mystic significance, and, in some men, an arch angelic grandeur; so do their diligent tracings-out not belie the obvious deduction. To trail the genealogies of these high mortal miseries, carries us at last among the sourceless primogeniture of the gods; so that, in the face of all the glad, hay-making suns, and soft-cymbal ling, round harvest-moons, we must need give in to this: that the gods themselves are not forever glad. The ineffable, sad birthmark in the brow of man, is but the stamp of sorrow in the signers.

— Herman Melville

For, thought Ahab, while even the highest earthly felicities ever have a certain signifying pettiness lurking in them, but, at bottom, all heart woes, a mystic significance, and, in some men, an arch angelic grandeur; so do their diligent tracings-out not blue the obvious deduction. To trail the genealogies of these high mortal miseries, carries us at last among the sourceless primogeniture of the gods; so that, in the face of all the glad, hay-making suns, and the softcymballing, round the harvest-moons, we must need give in to this: that the gods themselves are not forever glad. The ineffable, sad birth-mark in the brow of man, is but the stamp of sorrow in the signers.

— Herman Melville

For whatever is truly wondrous and fearful in man, never yet was put into words or books.

— Herman Melville

Friendship at first sight, like love at first sight, is said to be the only truth.

— Herman Melville