“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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“She found out that having something to do prevented you from feeling seasick, and that even a job like scrubbing a deck could be satisfying, if it was done in a seamanlike way. She was very taken with this notion, and later on she folded the blankets on her bunk in a seamanlike way, and put her possessions in the closet in a seamanlike way, and used 'stow' instead of 'tidy' for the process of doing so. After two days at sea, Lyra decided that this was the life for her.”
― Philip Pullman, quote from Northern Lights
“You continue to stare at me for a few seconds, assessing my face, before
you lean even closer to me. Your lips graze against mine briefly… Just
enough to reassure that you’re not truly upset with me, but are nonetheless
quite prepared to have some fun at my expense, and punish me for my poor
communication skills. Then you take a step back, leaving me flat against
the wall, tensed and expectant.”
― Felicity Brandon, quote from Destination Anywhere
“What you do with your time alive defines you, Reader, but hear me, I beg you, when I say that you are not done being defined. Go out; break things. Go further; repair them. Break hundreds of hearts. Have thousands of children. Discover awe in a tangle of weeds; find delight in the pattern of a roll of mass-produced paper towels; live, Reader, live; live as hard as I died, and only then I will be happy.”
― Daniel Kraus, quote from The Death and Life of Zebulon Finch, Vol. 2: Empire Decayed
“5But the angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. 6He is not here, for he has risen, s as he said. Come, see the place where he [1] lay.”
― quote from Holy Bible: ESV - English Standard Version
“Life is not perfect, individuals will always be flawed, but empathy – the sheer inability to see those around them as anything other than people too – conquers all, in the end.”
― Adrian Tchaikovsky, quote from Children of Time
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Astonishing X-Men, V...BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
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