Quotes from Benito Cereno

Herman Melville ·  160 pages

Rating: (5.4K votes)


“But the past is passed; why moralize upon it? Forget it. See, yon bright son has forgotten it all, and the blue sea, and the blue sky; these have turned over new leaves.

Because they have no memory . . . because they are not human.”
― Herman Melville, quote from Benito Cereno


“This slavery breeds ugly passions in man.”
― Herman Melville, quote from Benito Cereno


“The morning was one peculiar to that coast. Everything was mute and calm; everything gray. The sea, though undulated into long roods of swells, seemed fixed, and was sleeked at the surface like waved lead that has cooled and set in the smelter's mould. The sky seemed a gray surtout. Flights of troubled gray fowl, kith and kin with flights of troubled gray vapors among which they were mixed, skimmed low and fitfully over the waters, as swallows over meadows before storms. Shadows present, foreshadowing deeper shadows to come.”
― Herman Melville, quote from Benito Cereno


“the king of kind hearts and polite fellows”
― Herman Melville, quote from Benito Cereno


“His mind swarmed with superstitious suspicions.”
― Herman Melville, quote from Benito Cereno



“images far swifter than these sentences”
― Herman Melville, quote from Benito Cereno


“all was eclipsed in sinister muteness”
― Herman Melville, quote from Benito Cereno


“But, in fact, his reserve might, in some degree, have proceeded from design. If so, then here was evinced the unhealthy climax of that icy though conscientious policy, more or less adopted by all commanders of large ships, which, except in signal emergencies, obliterates alike the manifestation of sway with every trace of sociality; transforming the man into a block, or rather into a loaded cannon, which, until there is call for thunder, has nothing to say. Viewing”
― Herman Melville, quote from Benito Cereno


About the author

Herman Melville
Born place: in New York City, New York, The United States
Born date August 1, 1819
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