Herman Melville Quotes About Earth

Quotes about: Earth

• I have no objection to any person's religion, be it what it may, so long as that person does not kill or insult any other person, because that other person don't believe it also. But when a man's religion becomes really frantic; when it is a positive torment to him; and, in fine, makes this earth of ours an uncomfortable inn to lodge in; then I think it high time to take that individual aside and argue the point with him.

  Herman Melville

  Believe, Men, Thinking

  'Moby Dick' (1851) ch. 17

• Methinks we have hugely mistaken this matter of Life and Death. 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. Me thinks my body is but the lees of my better being. In fact take my body who will, take it I say, it is not me.

  Herman Melville

  Spiritual, Thinking, Air

  Herman Melville (1892). “Moby Dick”, p.40

• All deep, earnest thinking is but the intrepid effort of the soul to keep the open independence of her sea, while the wildest winds of heaven and earth conspire to cast her on the treacherous, slavish shore.

  Herman Melville

  Thinking, Wind, Sea

  Herman Melville (1892). “Moby Dick”, p.104

• for there is no folly of the beast of the earth which is not infinitely outdone by the madness of men

  Herman Melville

  Men, Earth, Madness

  Herman Melville (2016). “Moby-Dick: Or, the Whale”, p.315, Cosimo, Inc.

• Consider the subtleness of the sea; how its most dreaded creatures glide under water, 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

  Sea, Land, Water

  Herman Melville (2012). “Moby Dick (Illustrated & Annotated Edition)”, p.301, Jazzybee Verlag

• The sun hides not the ocean, which is the dark side of this earth, and which is two thirds of this earth. So, therefore, that mortal man who hath more of joy than sorrow in him, that mortal man cannot be true-- not true, or undeveloped. With books the same. The truest of all men was the Man of Sorrows, and the truest of all books is Solomon’s, and Ecclesiastes is the fine hammered steel of woe.

  Herman Melville

  Ocean, Book, Dark

  Herman Melville (2016). “Moby Dick (World Classics, Unabridged)”, p.293, Vij Books India Pvt Ltd

• The Anglo-Saxon hive have extirpated Paganism from the greater part of the North American continent; but with it they have likewise extirpated the greater portion of the Red race. Civilization is gradually sweeping from the earth the lingering vestiges of Paganism, and at the same time the shrinking forms of its unhappy worshippers.

  Herman Melville

  Civilization, Race, Unhappy

  Herman Melville (1982). “Herman Melville: Typee, Omoo, Mardi”, p.230, Library of America

• I am sorry to say we whites have a sad reputation among many of the Polynesians. The natives of these islands are naturally of a kindly and hospitable temper, but there has been implanted among them an almost instinctive hate of the white man. They esteem us, with rare exceptions, such as some of the missionaries, the most barbarous, treacherous, irreligious, and devilish creatures on the earth.

  Herman Melville

  Sorry, Hate, Men

  Herman Melville (1987). “Piazza Tales and Other Prose Pieces, 1839-1860: Volume Nine, Scholarly Edition”, p.415, Northwestern University Press

• The pulpit is ever this earth's foremost part; all the rest comes in its rear; the pulpit leads the world. From thence it is the storm of God's quick wrath is first descried, and the bow must bearthe earliest brunt. From thence it is the God of breezes fair or foul is first invokedfor favorable winds. Yes, the world's a ship on its passage out, and not a voyage complete; and the pulpit is its prow.

  Herman Melville

  Wrath, Wind, Storm

  Herman Melville (2015). “Annotated Moby Dick or, the Whale with English Grammar Exercises: by Herman Melville (Author), Robert Powell (Editor)”, p.54, Powell Publications, LLC

• All of us have monarchs and sages for kinsmen; nay, angels and archangels for cousins; since in antediluvian days, the sons of God did verily wed with our mothers, the irresistible daughters of Eve. Thus all generations are blended: and heaven and earth of one kin: the hierarchies of seraphs in the uttermost skies; the thrones and principalities in the zodiac; the shades that roam throughout space; the nations and families, flocks and folds of the earth; one and all, brothers in essence-oh, be we then brothers indeed! All things form but one whole.

  Herman Melville

  Daughter, Mother, Cousin

  Herman Melville (2012). “Mardi: And A Voyage Thither (Annotated Complete Edition)”, p.21, Jazzybee Verlag

• Where is there such an one who has not a thousand times been struck with a sort of infidel idea, that whatever other worlds God may be Lord of, he is not the Lord of this; for else this world would seem to give the lie to Him; so utterly repugnant seem its ways to the instinctively known ways of Heaven.

  Herman Melville

  God, Lying, Ideas

  Herman Melville (2016). “Pierre; or The Ambiguities”, p.272, Herman Melville

• Climate of Egypt in winter is the reign of spring upon earth, & summer in the air, and tranquility in the heat.

  Herman Melville

  Summer, Spring, Winter

  Herman Melville, Howard C. Horsford, Lynn Horth (1989). “Journals”, p.77, Northwestern University Press

• As a man-of-war that sails through the sea, so this earth that sails through the air. We mortals are all on board a fast-sailing,never-sinking world-frigate, of which God was the shipwright; and she is but one craft in a Milky-Way fleet, of which God is the Lord High Admiral.

  Herman Melville

  War, Men, Air

  Herman Melville (1850). “White-jacket; Or, The World in the Man-of-war”, p.463

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