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 whale ship was my Yale College and my Harvard.
More Herman Melville Quotes
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There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness is the true method.
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Stay true to the dreams of thy youth.
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It is hard to be finite upon an infinite subject, and all subjects are infinite.
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Meditation and water are wedded for ever.
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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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Yet habit – strange thing! what cannot habit accomplish?
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Hope is the struggle of the soul, breaking loose from what is perishable, and attesting her eternity.
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The most mighty of nature’s laws is this, that out of Death she brings Life.
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Ignorance is the parent of fear.
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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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Nature is nobody’s ally.
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Life’s a voyage that’s homeward bound.
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Ladies are like creeds; if you cannot speak well of them, say nothing.
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There is no quality in this world that is not what it is merely by contrast. Nothing exists in itself.
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We are only what we are; not what we would be; nor every thing we hope for. We are but a step in a scale, that reaches further above us than below.
HERMAN MELVILLE