A man of true science… thinks, that by mouthing hard words, he proves that he understands hard things.
HERMAN MELVILLEWhen the passage “All men are born free and equal,” when that passage was being written were not some of the signers legalised owners of slaves?
More Herman Melville Quotes
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Life’s a voyage that’s homeward bound.
HERMAN MELVILLE -
You know nothing till you know all; which is the reason we never know any thing.
HERMAN MELVILLE -
To know how to grow old is the master work of wisdom, and one of the most difficult chapters in the great art of living.
HERMAN MELVILLE -
All round and round does the world lie as in a sharp-shooter’s ambush, to pick off the beautiful illusions of youth, by the pitiless cracking rifles of the realities of age.
HERMAN MELVILLE -
Truth is in things, and not in words.
HERMAN MELVILLE -
Think not, is my eleventh commandment; and sleep when you can, is my twelfth.
HERMAN MELVILLE -
Faith, like a jackal, feeds among the tombs, and even from these dead doubts she gathers her most vital hope.
HERMAN MELVILLE -
There’s magic in the water that draws all men away form the land, that leads them over hills, down creeks and streams and rivers to the sea.
HERMAN MELVILLE -
For as this appalling ocean surrounds the verdant land, so in the soul of man there lies one insular Tahiti, full of peace and joy, but encompassed by all the horrors of the half known life.
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I am a man who, from his youth upwards, has been filled with a profound conviction that the easiest way of life is the best.
HERMAN MELVILLE -
Yet habit – strange thing! what cannot habit accomplish?
HERMAN MELVILLE -
What is an atheist, but one who does not, or will not, see in the universe a ruling principle of love; and what a misanthrope, but one who does not, or will not, see in man a ruling principle of kindness?
HERMAN MELVILLE -
I’ll try a pagan friend, thought I, since Christian kindness has proved but hollow courtesy.
HERMAN MELVILLE -
Benevolent desires, after passing a certain point, can not undertake their own fulfillment without incurring the risk of evils beyond those sought to be remedied.
HERMAN MELVILLE -
Let us speak, though we show all our faults and weaknesses, – for it is a sign of strength to be weak, to know it, and out with it – not in a set way and ostentatiously, though, but incidentally and without premeditation.
HERMAN MELVILLE -
It is hard to be finite upon an infinite subject, and all subjects are infinite.
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Ignorance is the parent of fear.
HERMAN MELVILLE -
You cannot hide the soul.
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for there is no folly of the beast of the earth which is not infinitely outdone by the madness of men
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The worst of our evils we blindly inflict upon ourselves; our officers cannot remove them, even if they would.
HERMAN MELVILLE -
Aid my disillusionment, my friend!
HERMAN MELVILLE -
Friendship at first sight, like love at first sight, is said to be the only truth.
HERMAN MELVILLE -
Failure is the true test of greatness
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Nature is nobody’s ally.
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All things that God would have us do are hard for us to do–remember that–and hence, he oftener commands us than endeavours to persuade.
HERMAN MELVILLE -
The only true infidelity is for a live man to vote himself dead.
HERMAN MELVILLE