quotes from classic

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, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's expense but his own.

more quotes from Herman Melville

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

more quotes from Herman Melville

He who has never failed somewhere, that man can not be great.

more quotes from Herman Melville

Give me a condor's quill! Give me Vesuvius crater for an inkstand!

more quotes from Herman Melville

Better sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunken Christian.

more quotes from Herman Melville

Miserable man! Oh! most contemptible and worthy of all scorn; with slouched hat and guilty eye, skulking from his God; prowling among the shipping like a vile burglar hastening to cross the seas.

more quotes from Herman Melville

Thrusted light is worse than presented pistols.

more quotes from Herman Melville

Old age is always wakeful; as if, the longer linked with life, the less man has to do with aught that looks like death.

more quotes from Herman Melville

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

more quotes from Herman Melville

Some dying men are the most tyrannical; and certainly, since they will shortly trouble us so little for evermore, the poor fellows ought to be indulged.

more quotes from Herman Melville

Don't just count your years, make your years count.

more quotes from George Meredith

I expect Woman will be the last thing civilized by Man.

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Possession without obligation to the object possessed approaches felicity.

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She poured a little social sewage into his ears.

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Who rises from prayer a better man, his prayer is answered.

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Memoirs are the backstairs of history.

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Cynicism is intellectual dandyism.

more quotes from George Meredith

A human act once set in motion flows on forever to the great account. Our deathlessness is in what we do, not in what we are.

more quotes from George Meredith

Ah, what a dusty answer gets the soul when hot for certainties in this our life!

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Caricature is rough truth.

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