Herman Melville

"I would prefer not to."
—Bartleby, the Scrivener

"The last person to fall overboard from the rigging is a landsman, because he grips the ropes so fiercely; whereas old tars are less careful, and sometimes pay the penalty."
—Redburn

"One of the coolest and wisest hours a man has, is just after he awakes in the morning."
—Bartleby, the Scrivener

"Ah! how shall these self-assumed attorneys and vicegerents be astounded, when they shall see all heaven peopled with heretics and heathens, and all hell nodding over with miters!"
—Mardi

"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!"
—Moby-Dick

"Look not too long in the face of the fire, O man! Never dream with thy hand on the helm! Turn not thy back to the compass; accept the first hint of the hitching tiller; believe not the artificial fire, when its redness makes all things look ghastly."
—Moby-Dick

"Ignorance is the parent of fear..."
—Moby-Dick

"My cheek blanches white while I write; I start at the scratch of my pen; my own mad brood of eagles devours me; fain would I unsay this audacity; but an iron-mailed hand clenches mine in a vice, and prints down every letter in my spite."
—Herman Melville, born today in 1819

"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."
—Herman Melville, born today in 1819

"There is no dignity in wickedness, whether in purple or rags; and hell is a democracy of devils, where all are equals."
—Redburn

"In ten days I have lived ten thousand years."
—Pierre

"So long as a man-of-war exists, it must ever remain a picture of much that is tyrannical and repelling in human nature."
—White-Jacket

"Thy own skeleton, thou thyself dost carry with thee, through this mortal life; and aye would view it, but for kind nature's screen; thou art death alive."
—Mardi

Ship in stormy sea

"Then the rushing Pequod, freighted with savages, and laden with fire, and burning a corpse, and plunging into that blackness of darkness, seemed the material counterpart of her monomaniac commander’s soul."
—Moby-Dick

"It is philanthropy to hate a misanthrope."
—The Encantadas

"When our smoke was over, he pressed his forehead against mine, clasped me round the waist, and said that henceforth we were married; meaning, in his country's phrase, that we were bosom friends; he would gladly die for me, if need should be."
—Moby-Dick

"No one could look at him without conceiving a strong dislike.... There was such an intolerable air of conceit about this man that it was almost as much as one could do to refrain from running up and affronting him."
—Omoo

"Greylock’s Most Excellent Majesty"!

"But, every night, when the curtain falls, truth comes in with darkness. No light shows from the mountain."
—The Piazza

"There is something in the contemplation of the mode in which America has been settled, that, in a noble breast, should forever extinguish the prejudices of national dislikes. Settled by the people of all nations, all nations may claim her for their own."
—Redburn

"There is infinite nonsense in the world on all of these matters; hence blame me not if I contribute my mite."
—Pierre

"All men are inspired; fools are inspired; your highness is inspired; for the essence of all ideas is infused. Of ourselves, and in ourselves, we originate nothing."
—Mardi

"Then hail, for ever hail, O sea, in whose eternal tossings the wild fowl finds his only rest. Born of earth, yet suckled by the sea; though hill and valley mothered me, ye billows are my foster-brothers!"
—Moby-Dick

Picture source: "Woman in Bonnet Reading a Book" by Maria R. Dixon

"Woman in Bonnet Reading a Book" by Maria R. Dixon

"Books, gentlemen, are a species of men, and introduced to them you circulate in the 'very best society' that this world can furnish, without the intolerable infliction of 'dressing' to go into it."
—A Thought on Book-Binding

"I am tormented with an everlasting itch for things remote. I love to sail forbidden seas, and land on barbarous coasts."
—Moby-Dick

Jacquemart of the Collegiate Church of Saint Pierre in Leuven, Belgium

"So the blind slave obeyed its blinder lord; but, in obedience, slew him. So the creator was killed by the creature."
—The Bell-Tower

"Contempt is as frequently produced at first sight as love..."
—Omoo

"Money, you think, is the sole motive to pains and hazard, deception and deviltry, in this world. How much money did the devil make by gulling Eve?"
—The Confidence-Man

"When, after all this silence, his unearthly voice was heard announcing that silvery, moon-lit jet, every reclining mariner started to his feet as if some winged spirit had lighted in the rigging, and hailed the mortal crew. 'There she blows!'"
—Moby-Dick