Herman Melville Quotes on Man (29 Quotes)

But what is worship? - to do the will of God - that is worship. And what is the will of God? - to do to my fellow man what I would have my fellow man to do to me - that is the will of God. Now, Queequeg is my fellow man.

For God's sake, be economical with your lamps and candles! not a gallon you burn, but at least one drop of man's blood was spilled for it.

However, a good laugh is a mighty good thing, and rather too scarce a good thing; the more's the pity. So, if any one man, in his own proper person, afford stuff for a good joke to anybody, let him not be backward, but let him cheerfully allow himself to spend and to be spent in that way. And the man that has anything bountifully laughable about him, be sure there is more in that man than you perhaps think for.

It does seem to me, that herein we see the rare virtue of a strong individual vitality, and the rare virtue of thick walls, and the rare virtue of interior spaciousness. Oh, man! admire and model thyself after the whale! Do thou, too, remain warm among ice. Do thou, too, live in this world without being of it. Be cool at the equator; keep thy blood fluid at the Pole. Like the great dome of St. Peter's, and like the great whale, retain, O man! in all seasons a temperature of thine own.

Man, in the ideal, is so noble and so sparkling, such a grand and glowing creature, that over any ignominious blemish in him all his fellows should run to throw their costliest robes.

Nevertheless the sun hides not Virginia's Dismal Swamp, nor Rome's accursed Campagna, nor wide Sahara, nor all the million miles of deserts and of griefs beneath the moon. 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.

Now, as you well know, it is not seldom the case in this conventional world of ours-watery or otherwise; that when a person placed in command over his fellow-men finds one of them to be very significantly his superior in general pride of manhood, straightway against that man he conceives an unconquerable dislike and bitterness; and if he had a chance he will pull down and pulverize that subaltern's tower, and make a little heap of dust of it.

Talk not to me of blasphemy, man; I'd strike the sun if it insulted me.

That immaculate manliness we feel within ourselves, so far within us, that it remains intact though all the outer character seem gone; bleeds with keenest anguish at the undraped spectacle of a valor-ruined man.

There is no folly of the beast of the earth which is not infinitely outdone by the madness of man.

Thou hast but enraged, not insulted me, sir; but for that I ask thee not to beware of Starbuck; thou wouldst but laugh; but let Ahab beware of Ahab; beware of thyself, old man.

Because no man can ever feel his own identity aright except his eyes be closed; as if darkness were indeed the proper element of our essences, though light be more congenial to our clayey part.

There is something wrong about the man who wants help. There is somewhere a deep defect, a want, in brief, a need, a crying need, somewhere about that man.

. . . however baby man may brag of his science and skill, and however much, in a flattering future, that science and skill may augment yet for ever and for ever, to the crack of doom, the sea will insult and murder him, and pulverize the stateliest, stiffest frigate he can make nevertheless, by the continual repetition of these very impressions, man has lost that sense of the full awfulness of the sea which aboriginally belongs to it.

So man's insanity is heaven's sense and wandering from all mortal reason, man comes at last to that celestial thought, which, to reason, is absurd and frantic and weal or woe, feels then uncompromised, indifferent as his God.

For as this appalling ocean surrounds the verdant land, so in the soul of man there lies one insular Tahiti, full of peace and joy, but encompassed by all the horrors of the half known life. God keep thee Push not off from that isle, thou canst never return

Where do murderers go, man! Who's to doom, when the judge himself is dragged to the bar?

How it is I know not but there is no place like a bed for confidential disclosures between friends. Man and wife, they say, there open the very bottom of their souls to each other and some old couples often lie and chat over old times till nearly morning. Thus, then, in our hearts honeymoon, lay I and Queequeg -- a cozy, loving pair.

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

There is nothing namable but that some men will, or undertake to, do it for pay.

Some dying men are the most tyrannical; and certainly, since they will shortly trouble us so little for evermore, the poor fellows ought to be indulged.

He who has never failed somewhere, that man can not be great.

Look you, Doubloon, your zodiac here is the life of man in one round chapter. To begin there's Aries, or the Ram -- lecherous dog, he begets us then, Taurus, or the Bull -- he bumps us the first thing then Gemini, or the Twins -- that is, Virtue and Vice we try to reach Virtue, when lo comes Cancer the Crab, and drags us back and here, going from Virtue, Leo, a roaring Lion, lies in the path -- he gives a few fierce bites and surly dabs with his paw we escape, and hail Virgo, the virgin that's our first love we marry and think to be happy for aye, when pop comes Libra, or the Scales -- happiness weighed and found wanting and while we are very sad about that, Lord how we suddenly jump, as Scorpio, or the Scorpion, stings us in rear we are curing the wound, when come the arrows all round Sagittarius, or the Archer, is amusing himself. As we pluck out the shafts, stand aside here's the battering-ram, Capricornus, or the Goat full tilt, he comes rushing, and headlong we are tossed when Aquarius, or the Waterbearer, pours out his whole deluge and drowns us and, to wind up, with Pisces, or the Fishes, we sleep.

God help thee, old man, thy thoughts have created a creature in thee and he whose intense thinking thus makes him a Prometheus a vulture feeds upon that heart for ever that vulture the very creature he creates.

None but a good man is really a living man, and the more good any man does, the more he really lives. All the rest is death, or belongs to it.

We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men.

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

Hereby perhaps Stubb indirectly hinted, that though man loved his fellow, yet man is a money-making animal, which propensity too often interferes with his benevolence.

There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes his whole universe for a vast practical joke.