“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
Herman Melville
Born place: in New York City, New York, The United States
Born date August 1, 1819
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“It's not that difficult, I want to say. People cheat all the time. The reasons are always selfish and base, it's the excuses we make that are complicated.”
― Sarah Pinborough, quote from Behind Her Eyes
“She was ugly, was all they'd told her. But she didn't find them beautiful, so what did it matter?”
― quote from Wake of Vultures
“Love will enter cloaked in friendship’s name. --Ovid”
― Emma Scott, quote from The Butterfly Project
“To disbelieve in original sin, does not mean that you must believe in original virtue. It only means that you must not believe that people are utterly wicked.”
― T.H. White, quote from The Book of Merlyn
“Please don’t. When you think about things, Sophronia, they only get more complicated. This thing between us could be so very easy, if you let it.”
― Gail Carriger, quote from Manners & Mutiny
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