Quotation by Herman Melville

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"A Thought on Book-Binding" (1850) The Piazza Tales and Other Prose Pieces 1839-1860, The Writings of Herman Melville, vol. 9, eds. Harrison Hayford, Alma A. MacDougall, and G. Thomas Tanselle (1987)"At the Hostelry" (posthumous) Poems, The Works of Herman Melville, vol. 16, ed. Raymond M. Weaver (1924)Babbalanja, in Mardi: and a Voyage Thither (1849)"Bartleby" (1853) The Piazza Tales and Other Prose Pieces 1839-1860, The Writings of Herman Melville, vol. 9, eds. Harrison Hayford, Alma A. MacDougall, and G. Thomas Tanselle (1987)"Bartleby" (1853) The Piazza Tales and Other Prose Pieces 1839-1860, The Writings of Herman Melville, vol. 9eds. Harrison Hayford, Alma A. MacDougall, and G. Thomas Tanselle (1987)

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science (6) truth (5) God (4) voyeurism (3) life (3) knowledge (3) vanity (2) art (2) poetry (2) wit (2)

All visible objects, man, are but as pasteboard masks. But in each event—in the living act, the undoubted deed—there, some unknown but still reasoning thing puts forth the mouldings of its features from behind the unreasoning mask. If man will strike, strike through the mask!

Herman Melville

Herman Melville (1819–1891), U.S. author. Moby-Dick (1851), ch. 36, The Writings of Herman Melville, vol. 6, eds. Harrison Hayford, Hershel Parker, and G. Thomas Tanselle (1988).

Spoken by Captain Ahab about Moby-Dick.

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