Herman Melville citáty
Herman Melville
Datum narození: 1. srpen 1819
Datum úmrtí: 28. září 1891
Herman Melville byl americký realistický spisovatel a básník.
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americký romanopisec, povídkářCitáty Herman Melville
„Lepší spát se střízlivým kanibalem, než opilým křesťanem.“
— Herman Melville, kniha Bílá velryba
(en) Better sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunken Christian.
Source: [Melville, Herman, 2012, Moby Dick, Cherry Hill Publishing, angličtina, 978-1-6207-900-69]
„A smile is the chosen vehicle of all ambiguities.“
— Herman Melville, Pierre: or, The Ambiguities
Pierre: or, The Ambiguities (1852), Bk. IV, ch. 5
„The worst of our evils we blindly inflict upon ourselves; our officers cannot remove them, even if they would.“
— Herman Melville, White-Jacket
White-Jacket (1850), Context: The worst of our evils we blindly inflict upon ourselves; our officers cannot remove them, even if they would. From the last ills no being can save another; therein each man must be his own saviour. For the rest, whatever befall us, let us never train our murderous guns inboard; let us not mutiny with bloody pikes in our hands. Our Lord High Admiral will yet interpose; and though long ages should elapse, and leave our wrongs unredressed, yet, shipmates and world-mates! let us never forget, that, Whoever afflict us, whatever surround, Life is a voyage that's homeward-bound!
Ch. 93
„It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation.“
— Herman Melville
Hawthorne and His Mosses (1850), Context: It is better to fail in originality, than to succeed in imitation. He who has never failed somewhere, that man can not be great. Failure is the true test of greatness.
Context: It is better to fail in originality, than to succeed in imitation. He who has never failed somewhere, that man can not be great. Failure is the true test of greatness. And if it be said, that continual success is a proof that a man wisely knows his powers, — it is only to be added, that, in that case, he knows them to be small. Let us believe it, then, once for all, that there is no hope for us in these smooth pleasing writers that know their powers.
„We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men; and along these fibers, as sympathetic threads, our actions run as causes, and they come back to us as effects.“
— Herman Melville
Misattributed, Though this statement and a few other variants of it have been widely attributed to Herman Melville, it is actually a paraphrase of one found in a sermon of Henry Melvill, "Partaking in Other Men's Sins", St. Margaret's Church, Lothbury, England (12 June 1855), printed in Golden Lectures (1855) :
: There is not one of you whose actions do not operate on the actions of others—operate, we mean, in the way of example. He would be insignificant who could only destroy his own soul; but you are all, alas! of importance enough to help also to destroy the souls of others. ...Ye cannot live for yourselves; a thousand fibres connect you with your fellow-men, and along those fibres, as along sympathetic threads, run your actions as causes, and return to you as effects.
„It is not down on any map; true places never are.“
— Herman Melville, Moby-Dick or, The Whale
„I hold it a verity, that even Shakspeare, was not a frank man to the uttermost. And, indeed, who in this intolerant universe is, or can be? But the Declaration of Independence makes a difference.“
— Herman Melville
Context: And do not think, my boy, that because I, impulsively broke forth in jubillations over Shakspeare, that, therefore, I am of the number of the snobs who burn their tuns of rancid fat at his shrine. No, I would stand afar off & alone, & burn some pure Palm oil, the product of some overtopping trunk. — I would to God Shakspeare had lived later, & promenaded in Broadway. Not that I might have had the pleasure of leaving my card for him at the Astor, or made merry with him over a bowl of the fine Duyckinck punch; but that the muzzle which all men wore on their soul in the Elizebethan day, might not have intercepted Shakspers full articulations. For I hold it a verity, that even Shakspeare, was not a frank man to the uttermost. And, indeed, who in this intolerant universe is, or can be? But the Declaration of Independence makes a difference.—There, I have driven my horse so hard that I have made my inn before sundown.
Letter to Evert Augustus Duyckinck (3 March 1849); published in The Letters of Herman Melville (1960) edited by Merrell R. Davis and William H. Gilman, p. 79
„The symmetry of form attainable in pure fiction can not so readily be achieved in a narration essentially having less to do with fable than with fact.“
— Herman Melville, book Billy Budd, Sailor
Billy Budd, the Sailor (1891), Context: The symmetry of form attainable in pure fiction can not so readily be achieved in a narration essentially having less to do with fable than with fact. Truth uncompromisingly told will always have its ragged edges...
Ch. 28
„These are the last resources of an insulted and unendurable existence.“
— Herman Melville, White-Jacket
White-Jacket (1850), Context: Nature has not implanted any power in man that was not meant to be exercised at times, though too often our powers have been abused. The privilege, inborn and inalienable, that every man has of dying himself, and inflicting death upon another, was not given to us without a purpose. These are the last resources of an insulted and unendurable existence.
Ch. 67
