The Past is the textbook of tyrants; the Future the Bible of the Free. Those who are solely governed by the Past stand like Lot’s wife, crystallized in the act of looking backward, and forever incapable of looking before.
HERMAN MELVILLEA thing may be incredible and still be true; sometimes it is incredible because it is true.
More Herman Melville Quotes
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Meditation and water are wedded for ever.
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I’ll try a pagan friend, thought I, since Christian kindness has proved but hollow courtesy.
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I know not all that may be coming, but be it what it will, I’ll go to it laughing.
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A smile is the chosen vehicle of all ambiguities.
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No philosophers so thoroughly comprehend us as dogs and horses.
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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.
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A man of true science… thinks, that by mouthing hard words, he proves that he understands hard things.
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Old age is always wakeful; as if, the longer linked with life, the less man has to do with aught that looks like death.
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Life’s a voyage that’s homeward bound.
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Only the man who says no is free
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Whatever my fate, I’ll go to it laughing.
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Beneath those stars is a universe of gliding monsters.
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When among wild beasts, if they menace you, be a wild beast.
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Art is the objectification of feeling.
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Thinking is, or ought to be, a coolness and a calmness; and our poor hearts throb, and our poor brains beat too much for that.
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Truth uncompromisingly told will always have its ragged edges.
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My body is but the lees of my better being.
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Heaven have mercy on us all – Presbyterians and Pagans alike – for we are all somehow dreadfully cracked about the head, and sadly need mending.
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Truth is in things, and not in words.
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You cannot hide the soul.
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Ignorance is the parent of fear.
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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.
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A thing may be incredible and still be true; sometimes it is incredible because it is true.
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All deep, earnest thinking is but the intrepid effort of the soul to keep the open independence of her sea, while the wildest winds of heaven and earth conspire to cast her on the treacherous, slavish shore.
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The most mighty of nature’s laws is this, that out of Death she brings Life.
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Better be an old maid, a woman with herself as a husband, than the wife of a fool; and Solomon more than hints that all men are fools; and every wise man knows himself to be one.
HERMAN MELVILLE