Herman Melville

"Truth is eternal but our understanding of it is not."

"A smile is the chosen vehicle of all ambiguities."

"Resolve to make your life a noble one."

"It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation."

"Call me ishmael—the beginning of all great adventures lies in accepting the unknown."

"There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you."

"The more I live, the more I learn that the heart of man holds infinite mysteries."

"To know how to live is to know how to let things pass away."

"In this world, it is not what we take up, but what we give up, that makes us rich."

"Man's life is but an hour-glass, and we must make each grain of sand count."

"Some certain significance lurks in all things, else all things are little worth."

"The past cannot be changed. The future is yet in your power."

"There is a sacredness in tears—they are not the mark of weakness but of power."

"All that most maddens and torments in the ways of men may be traced to one thing—pride."

"I would prefer not to—a phrase that contains the seeds of resistance and freedom."

"The great Leviathan teaches us that nature's grandeur surpasses human comprehension."

"Friendship is born when one person says to another: 'You too? I thought I was the only one.'"

"To live is to have sorrow; to seek happiness is to court disappointment."

"Better to sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunken Christian."

"It is the unbroken spirit that conquers fate, not the breaking of waves."

"Meditation and water are wedded forever—there is magic in the sea."

"Every man has his own Moby Dick—the white whale of his obsession."

"Knowledge puffs up, but it also illuminates the darkest corners of ignorance."

"Death may come for us all, but the memory of a good life never dies."

"The whale's eye holds the depths of the world's sorrows and mysteries."

"Courage is not the absence of fear, but the continuation of duty despite it."

"Ambition is a noble thing, until it becomes the master instead of the servant."

"Love is a dangerous voyage, and the heart is a ship often wrecked."

"A great book should leave you with many experiences and slightly exhausted."

"The most dangerous harpoon is not cast with the hand but with the tongue."