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10 Monstrous Quotes from Herman Melville

By September 28, 2016July 31st, 2017Authors, Quotations

Born in New York City on August 1, 1819 Herman Melville was an American novelist, short story writer, and poet of the American Renaissance period. Best known for his iconic novels Typee and  Moby Dick Herman began his working life as a teacher before heading off to sea 1839 as a common sailor on a merchant ship.

In 1840 he boarded the whaler Acushnet for his first foray into whaling but jumped ship and spent the next four years exploring and experiencing life in the Marquesas Islands. Upon his return to Boston in 1844 he penned his first novel, a highly romanticised version of his life in the Polynesian Islands.

The memoir was an immense success and Melville decided to write a sequel, which unfortunately was not quite so well received. He then attempted to write fiction which was again given a luke warm reception but he persevered and in 1851 published his most famous book Moby Dick.

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“It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation.”

“I know not all that may be coming, but be it what it will, I’ll go to it laughing.”



“A smile is the chosen vehicle of all ambiguities.”

“Better to sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunk Christian.”

“Of all the preposterous assumptions of humanity over humanity, nothing exceeds most of the criticisms made on the habits of the poor by the well-housed, well- warmed, and well-fed.”

“I try all things, I achieve what I can.”



“A man thinks that by mouthing hard words he understands hard things.”

“It is the easiest thing in the world for a man to look as if he had a great secret in him.”

“Real strength never impairs beauty or harmony, but it often bestows it, and in everything imposingly beautiful, strength has much to do with the magic.”

“To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme.”

Herman Melville’s work fell out of favour in his later years and it wasn’t until after his death from cardiovascular disease on September 28th 1891 that it really found a following again.

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