When beholding the tranquil beauty and brilliancy of the oceanโs skin, one forgets the tiger heart that pants beneath it; and would not willingly remember that this velvet paw but conceals a remorseless fang.
Herman MelvilleAmity itself can only be maintained by reciprocal respect, and true friends are punctilious equals.
Herman MelvilleWhere does any novelist pick up any character? For the most part, in town, to be sure.
Herman MelvilleWhere is there such an one who has not a thousand times been struck with a sort of infidel idea, that whatever other worlds God may be Lord of, he is not the Lord of this; for else this world would seem to give the lie to Him; so utterly repugnant seem its ways to the instinctively known ways of Heaven.
Herman Melville