# Herman Melville - Quotes: 191 - Author page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/herman-melville ## Books - [Moby-Dick](https://www.leafyquotes.com/herman-melville/moby-dick.md) — 145 quotes - [The Confidence-Man](https://www.leafyquotes.com/herman-melville/the-confidence-man.md) — 46 quotes ## Recently added quotes > "Then, good-night, good-night; and Providence have both of us in its good keeping." > > "Be sure it will," eying the old man with sympathy, as for the moment he stood, money-belt in hand, and life-preserver under arm, "be sure it will, sir, since in Providence, as in man, you and I equally put trust. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/herman-melville/the-confidence-man/then-good-night-good-night.md) > The next moment, the waning light expired, and with it the waning flames of the horned altar, and the waning halo round the robed man's brow; while in the darkness which ensued, the cosmopolitan kindly led the old man away. Something further may follow of this Masquerade. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/herman-melville/the-confidence-man/the-next-moment.md) > With you, sir, I believe in a Committee of Safety, holding silent sessions over all, in an invisible patrol, most alert when we soundest sleep, and whose beat lies as much through forests as towns, along rivers as streets. In short, I never forget that passage of Scripture which says, "Jehovah shall be thy confidence." The traveler who has not this trust, what miserable misgivings must be his; or, what vain, short-sighted care must he take of himself. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/herman-melville/the-confidence-man/with-you-sir.md) > "I agree with you in thinking that the lawyer, and the congressman, and the editor, are in error, but only in so far as each claims peculiar facilities for the sort of knowledge in question; because, you see, sir, the truth is, that every trade or pursuit which brings one into contact with the facts, sir, such trade or pursuit is equally an avenue to those facts." [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/herman-melville/the-confidence-man/i-agree-with.md) > The mind is ductile, very much so: but images, ductilely received into it, need a certain time to harden and bake in their impressions, otherwise such a casualty as I speak of will in an instant obliterate them, as though they had never been. We are but clay, sir, potter's clay, as the good book says, clay, feeble, and too-yielding clay. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/herman-melville/the-confidence-man/the-mind-is-ductile.md) > To be full of warm, earnest words, and heart-felt protestations, is to create a scene; and well-bred people dislike few things more than that; which would seem to look as if the world did not relish earnestness; but, not so; because the world, being earnest itself, likes an earnest scene, and an earnest man, very well, but only in their place — the stage. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/herman-melville/the-confidence-man/to-be-full.md) > "I am pleased to believe that beauty is at bottom incompatible with ill, and therefore am so eccentric as to have confidence in the latent benignity of that beautiful creature, the rattle-snake, whose lithe neck and burnished maze of tawny gold, as he sleekly curls aloft in the sun, who on the prairie can behold without wonder?" > > As he breathed these words, he seemed so to enter into their spirit — as some earnest descriptive speakers will — as unconsciously to wreathe his form and sidelong crest his head, till he all but seemed the creature described. Meantime, the stranger regarded him with little surprise, apparently, though with much contemplativeness of a mystical sort, and presently said: "When charmed by the beauty of that viper, did it never occur to you to change personalities with him? to feel what it was to be a snake? to glide unsuspected in grass? to sting, to kill at a touch; your whole beautiful body one iridescent scabbard of death? In short, did the wish never occur to you to feel yourself exempt from knowledge, and conscience, and revel for a while in the care-free, joyous life of a perfectly instinctive, unscrupulous, and irresponsible creature?" [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/herman-melville/the-confidence-man/i-am-pleased.md) > "So you are a philanthropist, sir," added the barber with an illuminated look; "that accounts, then, for all. Very odd sort of man the philanthropist. You are the second one, sir, I have seen. Very odd sort of man, indeed, the philanthropist. Ah, sir," again meditatively stirring in the shaving-cup," I sadly fear, lest you philanthropists know better what goodness is, than what men are." Then, eying him as if he were some strange creature behind cage-bars, "So you are a philanthropist, sir." "I am Philanthropos, and love mankind. And, what is more than you do, barber, I trust them." [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/herman-melville/the-confidence-man/so-you-are.md) > "With what heart," cried Frank, still in character, "have you told me this story? A story I can no way approve; for its moral, if accepted, would drain me of all reliance upon my last stay, and, therefore, of my last courage in life. For, what was that bright view of China Aster but a cheerful trust that, if he but kept up a brave heart, worked hard, and ever hoped for the best, all at last would go well? If your purpose, Charlie, in telling me this story, was to pain me, and keenly, you have succeeded; but, if it was to destroy my last confidence, I praise God you have not." [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/herman-melville/the-confidence-man/with-what-heart.md) > You have hearkened to my story in vain, if you do not see that, however indulgent and right-minded I may seem to you now, that is no guarantee for the future. And into the power of that uncertain personality which, through the mutability of my humanity, I may hereafter become, should not common sense dissuade you, my dear Frank, from putting yourself? [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/herman-melville/the-confidence-man/you-have-hearkened.md) > While religion, contrary to the common notion, implies, in certain cases, a spirit of slow reserve as to assent, infidelity, which claims to despise credulity, is sometimes swift to it. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/herman-melville/the-confidence-man/while-religion-contrary.md) > If ever, in days to come, you shall see ruin at hand, and, thinking you understand mankind, shall tremble for your friendships, and tremble for your pride; and, partly through love for the one and fear for the other, shall resolve to be beforehand with the world, and save it from a sin by prospectively taking that sin to yourself, then will you do as one I now dream of once did, and like him will you suffer; but how fortunate and how grateful should you be, if like him, after all that had happened, you could be a little happy again. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/herman-melville/the-confidence-man/if-ever-in-days.md)