Herman Melville

"Some sort of craziness or abnormality is almost a prerequisite for greatness."

"Genius, like the sun, should have spots."

"Call me ishmael; some years ago—never mind how long precisely—having little or no money in my purse, I thought I would sail about a little."

"The intense concentration of self in the middle of vast surroundings impresses us with a sense of the world's vastness."

"In much the same way as the great Pyramids were built without machines."

"There is no quality in this world that is not what it is merely by contrast."

"Wars, true wars, not mere affairs of posts and garrisons, must be carried on systematically."

"A whale ship was my Yale College and my Harvard."

"I would prefer not to."

"There is a man-of-war and a woman of peace."

"Knowledge is power, but enthusiasm pulls the switch."

"One cannot love without respecting, and one cannot respect without some admiration."

"The sun shines over all things equally; to each according to its nature."

"What a pity, that the men who really understand the world are confined to the lunatic asylums."

"I write precisely as I please."

"The question is, what is a man after all? A poor creature, dependent on the care of others."

"Faith builds up a man; fact tears him down."

"The same winds that blow one ship north blow another south."

"Better to maintain a fiction than admit a truth that wounds."

"In the lap of a sleeping sea, all motion is suspended and all sound is stilled."

"There is a comfort in the strength of love."

"The past is replete with the examples of reformers."

"Human madness is the laughter of the spheres."

"To be born is to be wrecked on an island."

"Meditation and water are wedded forever."

"Let us be thankful for the fools. But for them the rest of us could not succeed."

"Books are the quietest and most constant of friends."

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

"A man may have thought he had a heart, but when troubles come, it is then he learns."

"Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have it thrust upon them."