"So true it is, and so terrible, too, that up to a certain point the thought or sight of misery enlists our best affections; but, in certain special ca...

Photo by Ákos Szabó

Photo by Ian Turnell










More Herman Melville quotes
"Ahab is for ever Ahab, man. This whole act's immutably decreed. 'Twas rehearsed by thee and me a billion years before this ocean rolled. Fool! I am th...
"They have provided a system which for terse comprehensiveness surpasses Justinian's Pandects and the By-laws of the Chinese Society for the Suppressio...
"It was a black and hooded head; and hanging there in the midst of so intense a calm, it seemed the Sphynx’s in the desert. “Speak, thou vast and vener...