Herman Melville quotes

" But it is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation. " # Originality # Failure # Imitation

" Life’s a voyage that’s homeward bound " # Life and Living

" 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. " # Astrology # Love # Happiness

" A man thinks that by mouthing hard words he understands hard things. " # Words

" A smile is the chosen vehicle of all ambiguities. " # Smile # Language # Music

" From without, no wonderful effect is wrought within ourselves, unless some interior, responding wonder meets it. " # Arts and Artists

" In our own hearts, we mold the whole world's hereafters; and in our own hearts we fashion our own gods. " # Heart # Fashion # God

" We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men; and among those fibers, as sympathetic threads, our actions run as courses, and they come back to us as effects. " # Action # Sympathy # Love

" We may have civilized bodies and yet barbarous souls. We are blind to the real sights of this world; deaf to its voice; and dead to its death. And not till we know, that one grief outweighs ten thousand joys will we become what Christianity is striving to make us. " # Insensitivity # Death and Dying # Grief

" Old age is always wakeful; as if, the longer linked with life, the less man has to do with aught that looks like death. " # Age and Aging # Death and Dying # Dreams