Herman Melville Quotes About Character

We have collected for you the TOP of Herman Melville's best quotes about Character! Here are collected all the quotes about Character starting from the birthday of the Novelist – August 1, 1819! We hope you will be inspired to new achievements with our constantly updated collection of quotes. At the moment, this page contains 2 sayings of Herman Melville about Character. We will be happy if you share our collection of quotes with your friends on social networks!
  • The entire merit of a man can never be made known; nor the sum of his demerits, if he have them. We are only known by our names; as letters sealed up, we but read each other's superscriptions.

    Herman Melville (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Herman Melville (Illustrated)”, p.874, Delphi Classics
  • There is no Champollion to decipher the Egypt of every man's and every being's face. Physiognomy, like every other human science,is but a passing fable.

    Herman Melville (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Herman Melville (Illustrated)”, p.2096, Delphi Classics
  • Much of a man's character will be found betokened in his backbone. I would rather feel your spine than your skull, whoever you are. A thin joist of a spine never yet upheld a full and noble soul.

    Herman Melville, Harrison Hayford, Hershel Parker, G. Thomas Tanselle (1988). “Moby Dick, Or The Whale: Volume 6, Scholarly Edition”, p.349, Northwestern University Press
  • That immaculate manliness we feel within ourselves, so far within us, that it remains intact though all the outer character seem gone; bleeds with keenest anguish at the undraped spectacle of a valor-ruined man.

    Herman Melville (2008). “Moby-Dick”, p.127, Velvet Element Books
  • That author who draws a character, even though to common view incongruous in its parts, as the flying-squirrel, and, at differentperiods, as much at variance with itself as the caterpillar is with the butterfly into which it changes, may yet, in so doing, be not false but faithful to facts.

    Herman Melville (1988). “The Confidence-man: His Masquerade”, p.70, Northwestern University Press
  • Where does any novelist pick up any character? For the most part, in town, to be sure.

    Herman Melville (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Herman Melville (Illustrated)”, p.3049, Delphi Classics
  • What we take to be our strongest tower of delight, only stands at the caprice of the minutest event the falling of a leaf, the hearing of a voice, or the receipt of one little bit of paper scratched over with a few small characters by a sharpened feather.

    Herman Melville (1971). “Pierre, Or The Ambiguities: Volume Seven, Scholarly Edition”, p.69, Northwestern University Press
  • War being the greatest of evils, all its accessories necessarily partake of the same character.

    War   Character   Evil  
    Herman Melville (1850). “Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life, During a Four Months' Residence in the Valley of the Marquesas”
Page of
Did you find Herman Melville's interesting saying about Character? We will be glad if you share the quote with your friends on social networks! This page contains Novelist quotes from Novelist Herman Melville about Character collected since August 1, 1819! Come back to us again – we are constantly replenishing our collection of quotes so that you can always find inspiration by reading a quote from one or another author!