Herman Melville Zitate

seite 3

Moby Dick

Moby Dick, gemeint ist die Insel, die die Romanfigur Captain Ahab sucht

Moby Dick. Kapitel 17, Der Ramadan. online-literature.com http://www.online-literature.com/melville/mobydick/18/; übersetzt von Matthias Jendits. 6. Auflage, btb Verlag.
Original engl.: "Hell is an idea first born on an undigested apple-dumpling; and since then perpetuated through the hereditary dyspepsias nurtured by Ramadans."

Moby Dick. Kapitel 35, Im Masttop

Moby Dick. Kapitel 7, Die Kirche. online-literature.com http://www.online-literature.com/melville/mobydick/8/; übersetzt von Matthias Jendits. 6. Auflage, btb Verlag.
Original engl.: "But Faith, like a jackal, feeds among the tombs, and even from these dead doubts she gathers her most vital hope."

Moby Dick. Kapitel 26, Ritter und Knappen. online-literature.com http://www.online-literature.com/melville/mobydick/27/; übersetzt von Matthias Jendits. 6. Auflage, btb Verlag.
Original engl.: "Men may seem detestable as joint stock-companies and nations; knaves, fools, and murderers there may be; men may have mean and meagre faces; but, man, in the ideal, is so noble and so sparkling, such a grand and glowing creature, that over any ignominious blemish in him all his fellows should run to throw their costliest robes."

Quelle: Billy Budd, the Sailor (1891), Ch. 21
Quelle: Billy Budd, Sailor
Kontext: Who in the rainbow can draw the line where the violet tint ends and the orange tint begins? Distinctly we see the difference of the colors, but where exactly does the one first blendingly enter into the other? So with sanity and insanity. In pronounced cases there is no question about them. But in some supposed cases, in various degrees supposedly less pronounced, to draw the exact line of demarcation few will undertake tho' for a fee some professional experts will. There is nothing nameable but that some men will undertake to do it for pay.

Quelle: Moby-Dick or, The Whale

Quelle: Moby-Dick or, The Whale

Quelle: Moby-Dick

Quelle: Billy Budd

Quelle: Moby-Dick

Quelle: Moby Dick

Letter to Nathaniel Hawthorne (July 1851); published in Memories of Hawthorne (1897) by Rose Hawthorne Lathrop, p. 157
Kontext: In me divine magnanimities are spontaneous and instantaneous — catch them while you can. The world goes round, and the other side comes up. So now I can't write what I felt. But I felt pantheistic then—your heart beat in my ribs and mine in yours, and both in God's. A sense of unspeakable security is in me this moment, on account of your having understood the book. I have written a wicked book, and feel spotless as the lamb. Ineffable socialities are in me. I would sit down and dine with you and all the Gods in old Rome's Pantheon. It is a strange feeling — no hopelessness is in it, no despair. Content — that is it; and irresponsibility; but without licentious inclination. I speak now of my profoundest sense of being, not of an incidental feeling.

Quelle: Moby-Dick or, The Whale

Quelle: Moby-Dick or, The Whale

Quelle: Moby-Dick or, The Whale

Bartleby, the Scrivener (1853)
Quelle: Bartleby the Scrivener

Variante: Whoever afflict us, whatever surround, Life is a voyage that's homeward-bound!
Quelle: White-Jacket (1850), Ch. 93
Kontext: 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!

Quelle: Moby-Dick or, The Whale

Quelle: Bartleby the Scrivener

Variante: for there is no folly of the beast of the earth which is not infinitely outdone by the madness of men
Quelle: Moby-Dick or, The Whale

Quelle: Moby-Dick or, The Whale

Quelle: Moby-Dick or, The Whale

Variante: Better to sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunk Christian.
Quelle: Moby-Dick or, The Whale

Quelle: Moby Dick

Quelle: Moby-Dick

Quelle: Moby-Dick or, The Whale