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 MELVILLEWhen among wild beasts, if they menace you, be a wild beast.
More Herman Melville Quotes
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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.
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There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness is the true method.
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Of all the preposterous assumptions of humanity over humanity, nothing exceeds most of the criticisms made on the habits of the poor by the well-housed, well- warmed, and well-fed.
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No philosophers so thoroughly comprehend us as dogs and horses.
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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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I’ll try a pagan friend, thought I, since Christian kindness has proved but hollow courtesy.
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Failure is the true test of greatness
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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.
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There is nothing so slipperily alluring as sadness; we become sad in the first place by having nothing stirring to do; we continue in it, because we have found a snug sofa at last.
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A book in a man’s brain is better off than a book bound in calf – at any rate it is safer from criticism.
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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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In a multitude of acquaintances is less security, than in one faithful friend.
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He who has never failed somewhere, that man can not be great.
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There is no quality in this world that is not what it is merely by contrast. Nothing exists in itself.
HERMAN MELVILLE






