Herman Melville

fail originality succeed imitaton

“It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation.”

― Herman Melville (1819-1891)

smile vehicle ambiguities

“A smile is the chosen vehicle of all ambiguities.”

― Herman Melville (1819-1891)

life individual connections actions cause effect

“We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men; and among those fibers, as sympathetic threads, our actions run as causes, and they come back to us as effects.”

― Herman Melville (1819-1891)

sleep sober cannibal drunk christian

“Better to sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunk Christian.”

― Herman Melville (1819-1891)

assumption humanity criticism poor well-housed warmed fed

“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.”

― Herman Melville (1819-1891)

ignorance parent fear

“Ignorance is the parent of fear.”

― Herman Melville (1819-1891)

mouthing speaking hard words understand

“A man thinks that by mouthing hard words he understands hard things.”

― Herman Melville (1819-1891)

think sleep commandment

“Think not, is my eleventh commandment; and sleep when you can, is my twelfth.”

― Herman Melville (1819-1891)

prejudice elastic grow

“See how elastic our prejudices grow when once love comes to bend them.”

― Herman Melville (1819-1891)

fate laugh

“Whatever my fate, I'll go to it laughing.”

― Herman Melville (1819-1891)

truth thing word

“Truth is in things, and not in words.”

― Herman Melville (1819-1891)

life voyage homeward bound

“Life’s a voyage that’s homeward bound.”

― Herman Melville (1819-1891)

past dead future life hope

"The Past is dead, and has no resurrection; but the Future is endowed with such a life, that it lives to us even in anticipation. The Past is, in many things, the foe of mankind; the Future is, in all things, our friend. In the Past is no hope; The Future is both hope and fruition. The Past is the text-book of tyrants; the Future is 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 Melville (1819-1891)

philosopher understand dog horse

"No philosophers so thoroughly comprehend us as dogs and horses."

― Herman Melville (1819-1891)

man no free

"Only the man who says no is free"

― Herman Melville (1819-1891)

sail forbidden seas barbarous coast

"I love to sail forbidden seas, and land on barbarous coasts."

― Herman Melville (1819-1891)

world of lies truth Shakspeare white dove

"In this world of lies, Truth is forced to fly like a scared white doe in the woodlands; and only by cunning glimpses will she reveal herself, as in Shakespeare and other masters of the great Art of Telling the Truth, even though it be covertly, and by snatches."

― Herman Melville (1819-1891)

quality contrast relation

"There is no quality in this world that is not what it is merely by contrast. Nothing exists in itself."

― Herman Melville (1819-1891)

past textbook tyrant future bible free

"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 Melville (1819-1891)

queer times life universe practivcal joke

"There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke."

— Herman Melville (1819-1891)