"I would prefer not to." —Bartleby, the Scrivener

"The last person to fall overboard from the rigging is a landsman, because he grips the ropes so fiercely; whereas old tars are less careful, and sometimes pay the penalty." —Redburn

"One of the coolest and wisest hours a man has, is just after he awakes in the morning." —Bartleby, the Scrivener

"Ah! how shall these self-assumed attorneys and vicegerents be astounded, when they shall see all heaven peopled with heretics and heathens, and all hell nodding over with miters!" —Mardi

"For as this appalling ocean surrounds the verdant land, so in the soul of man there lies one insular Tahiti, full of peace and joy, but encompassed by all the horrors of the half known life. God keep thee! Push not off from that isle, thou canst never return!" —Moby-Dick

"Look not too long in the face of the fire, O man! Never dream with thy hand on the helm! Turn not thy back to the compass; accept the first hint of the hitching tiller; believe not the artificial fire, when its redness makes all things look ghastly." —Moby-Dick

"Ignorance is the parent of fear..." —Moby-Dick

"My cheek blanches white while I write; I start at the scratch of my pen; my own mad brood of eagles devours me; fain would I unsay this audacity; but an iron-mailed hand clenches mine in a vice, and prints down every letter in my spite." —Herman Melville, born today in 1819

"Oh, man! admire and model thyself after the whale! Do thou, too, remain warm among ice. Do thou, too, live in this world without being of it. Be cool at the equator; keep thy blood fluid at the Pole." —Herman Melville, born today in 1819

"There is no dignity in wickedness, whether in purple or rags; and hell is a democracy of devils, where all are equals." —Redburn

"In ten days I have lived ten thousand years." —Pierre

"So long as a man-of-war exists, it must ever remain a picture of much that is tyrannical and repelling in human nature." —White-Jacket

"Thy own skeleton, thou thyself dost carry with thee, through this mortal life; and aye would view it, but for kind nature's screen; thou art death alive." —Mardi

"Then the rushing Pequod, freighted with savages, and laden with fire, and burning a corpse, and plunging into that blackness of darkness, seemed the material counterpart of her monomaniac commander’s soul." —Moby-Dick

"It is philanthropy to hate a misanthrope." —The Encantadas

"When our smoke was over, he pressed his forehead against mine, clasped me round the waist, and said that henceforth we were married; meaning, in his country's phrase, that we were bosom friends; he would gladly die for me, if need should be." —Moby-Dick

"No one could look at him without conceiving a strong dislike.... There was such an intolerable air of conceit about this man that it was almost as much as one could do to refrain from running up and affronting him." —Omoo

"But, every night, when the curtain falls, truth comes in with darkness. No light shows from the mountain." —The Piazza

"There is something in the contemplation of the mode in which America has been settled, that, in a noble breast, should forever extinguish the prejudices of national dislikes. Settled by the people of all nations, all nations may claim her for their own." —Redburn

"There is infinite nonsense in the world on all of these matters; hence blame me not if I contribute my mite." —Pierre

"All men are inspired; fools are inspired; your highness is inspired; for the essence of all ideas is infused. Of ourselves, and in ourselves, we originate nothing." —Mardi

"Then hail, for ever hail, O sea, in whose eternal tossings the wild fowl finds his only rest. Born of earth, yet suckled by the sea; though hill and valley mothered me, ye billows are my foster-brothers!" —Moby-Dick

"Books, gentlemen, are a species of men, and introduced to them you circulate in the 'very best society' that this world can furnish, without the intolerable infliction of 'dressing' to go into it." —A Thought on Book-Binding

"I am tormented with an everlasting itch for things remote. I love to sail forbidden seas, and land on barbarous coasts." —Moby-Dick

"So the blind slave obeyed its blinder lord; but, in obedience, slew him. So the creator was killed by the creature." —The Bell-Tower

"Contempt is as frequently produced at first sight as love..." —Omoo

"Money, you think, is the sole motive to pains and hazard, deception and deviltry, in this world. How much money did the devil make by gulling Eve?" —The Confidence-Man

"When, after all this silence, his unearthly voice was heard announcing that silvery, moon-lit jet, every reclining mariner started to his feet as if some winged spirit had lighted in the rigging, and hailed the mortal crew. 'There she blows!'" —Moby-Dick

"Appalling is the soul of a man! Better might one be pushed off into the material spaces beyond the uttermost orbit of our sun, than once feel himself fairly afloat in himself." —Pierre

"The strong wind of your hate fills my sails well. Adieu." —Israel Potter

"Dollars damn me; and the malicious Devil is forever grinning in upon me, holding the door ajar." —Letter, 1851

"Our own hearts are our best prayer-rooms, and the chaplains who can most help us are ourselves." —White-Jacket

"Picked and prudent sentiments. You are the moderate man, the invaluable understrapper of the wicked man. You, the moderate man, may be used for wrong, but are useless for right." —The Confidence-Man

"Not one man in five cycles, who is wise, will expect appreciative recognition from his fellows." —Letter, 1851

"There is nothing so slipperily alluring as sadness; we become sad in the first place by having nothing stirring to do; we continue in it, because we have found a snug sofa at last." —Pierre

"But as there are teetotal palates which have a distaste even for Amontillado, so I suppose there may be teetotal souls which relish not even the very best brands of humanity." —The Confidence-Man

"Jonah did the Almighty’s bidding. And what was that, shipmates? To preach the Truth to the face of Falsehood! That was it!" —Moby-Dick

"That the king, in the eye of the law, can do no wrong, is the well-known fiction of despotic states." —White-Jacket

"What’s all this fuss I have been making about, thought I to myself—the man’s a human being just as I am: he has just as much reason to fear me, as I have to be afraid of him. Better sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunken Christian." —Moby-Dick

"Nothing so aggravates an earnest person as a passive resistance." —Bartleby, the Scrivener

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 🌶️🌶️ for the plot 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️ for the illustrations Our summer beach reads are heating up. What should we read next?

"Thus this mysterious, divine Pacific zones the world's whole bulk about; makes all coasts one bay to it; seems the tide-beating heart of earth. Lifted by those eternal swells, you needs must own the seductive god, bowing your head to Pan." —Moby-Dick

"Oh, now I know the night, and comprehend the sorceries of the moon, and all the dark persuadings that have their birth in storms and winds." —Pierre

"Ours is an unstable world; so that one gentleman never knows when it may be his turn to be helped of another." —Israel Potter

"When man toils and slays himself for masters who withhold the life he gives to them—then, then, the soul screams out, and every sinew cracks." —Mardi

"Truth uncompromisingly told will always have its ragged edges." ―Billy Budd, Sailor

"As well hate a seraph, as a shark. Both were made by the same hand. And that sharks are lovable, witness their domestic endearments. No Fury so ferocious, as not to have some amiable side. In the wild wilderness, a leopard-mother caresses her cub, as Hagar did Ishmael..." —Mardi

"Can that be good and virtuous, Pierre, which shrinks from a mother’s knowledge?" —Pierre

"You may despise your mother’s leading-strings, but they are the man-ropes my lads, by which many youngsters have steadied the giddiness of youth, and saved themselves from lamentable falls." —White-Jacket