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The man's (a heathen south sea islander) a human being, just as I am he has just as much reason to fear me, as I have to be afraid of him. Better sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunken Christian.

Herman Melville

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Herman Melville
Age: 72 †
Born: 1819
Born: August 1
Died: 1891
Died: September 28
Art Collector
Essayist
Lecturer
Literary Critic
Novelist
Poet
Sailor
Teacher
Writer
Manhattan borough
New York City
Hermann Melville
Herman Melvill
Christian
Cannibal
Fear
Drunken
Reason
Heathen
Better
Sober
Human
Sea
Humans
South
Much
Afraid
Men
Sleep

More quotes by Herman Melville

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What plays the mischief with the truth is that men will insist upon the universal application of a temporary feeling or opinion.
Herman Melville
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All Profound things, and emotions of things are preceded and attended by Silence.
Herman Melville
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Standing navies, as well as standing armies, serve to keep alive the spirit of war even in the meek heart of peace. In its very embers and smoulderings, they nourish that fatal fire, and half-pay officers, as the priests of Mars, yet guard the temple, though no god be there.
Herman Melville
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At my years, and with my disposition, or rather, constitution, one gets to care less and less for everything except downright goodfeeling. Life is so short, and so ridiculous and irrational (from a certain point of view) that one knows not what to make of it, unless--well, finish the sentence for yourself.
Herman Melville
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None but a good man is really a living man, and the more good any man does, the more he really lives. All the rest is death, or belongs to it.
Herman Melville
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Silence is the only Voice of our God.
Herman Melville
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Man and boy, I have lived ever since I can remember.
Herman Melville
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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
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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.
Herman Melville
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Whenever we discover a dislike in us, toward any one, we should ever be a little suspicious of ourselves.
Herman Melville
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Youth is the time when hearts are large.
Herman Melville
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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.
Herman Melville
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My means are sane, my motives and my object mad.
Herman Melville
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It is the horrible texture of a fabric that should be woven of ships' cables and hawsers. A Polar wind blows through it, and birds of prey hover over it.
Herman Melville
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all mankind, not excluding Americans, are sinners--miserable sinners, as even no few Bostonians themselves nowadays contritely respond in the liturgy.
Herman Melville
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At last the anchor was up, the sails were set, and off we glided. It was a sharp, cold Christmas and as the short northern day merged into night, we found ourselves almost broad upon the wintry ocean, whose freezing spray cased us in ice, as in polished armor.
Herman Melville
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There never was a great man yet who spent all his life inland.
Herman Melville
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Dollars damn me and the malicious Devil is forever grinning in upon me, holding the door ajar. ... What I feel most moved to write, that is banned - it will not pay. Yet, altogether, write the other way I cannot. So the product is a final hash, and all my books are botches.
Herman Melville
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Students of history are horror-struck at the massacres of old but in the shambles, men are being murdered to-day.
Herman Melville
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Yea, foolish mortals, Noah's flood is not yet subsided two thirds of the fair world it yet covers.
Herman Melville