# Quote — Herman Melville, The Confidence-Man

> 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.

- Author: [Herman Melville](https://www.leafyquotes.com/herman-melville.md)
- Book: [The Confidence-Man](https://www.leafyquotes.com/herman-melville/the-confidence-man.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Confidence-Man#Quotes) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/herman-melville/the-confidence-man/the-mind-is-ductile

## More from this book

> "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)