Why did the old Persians hold the sea holy? Why did the Greeks give it a separate deity, and own brother Jove? Surely all this is not without meaning. And still deeper the meaning of that story of Narcissus, who because he could not grasp the tormenting mild image he saw in the fountain, plunged into it and was drowned. But that same image, we ourselves see in all rivers and oceans. It is the image of the ungraspable phantom of life; and this is the key to it all. β¨ Herman Melville (1892). Moby Dick, p.9
More Author Quotes
- There are hardly five critics in America; and several of them are asleep. β¨ Herman Melville, Harrison Hayford, G. Thomas Tanselle (1987). Piazza Tales and Other Prose Pieces, 1839-1860: Volume Nine, β¦ βΆ
- The urbane activity with which a man receives money is really marvelous, considering that we so earnestly believe money to be the root of all earthly ills, and that on no account can a monied man ent β¦ βΆ
- Of all insults, the temporary condescension of a master to a slave is the most outrageous and galling. That potentate who most condescends, mark him well; for that potentate, if occasion come, will p β¦ βΆ
- I have the satisfaction of knowing that it is all right; that everybody else is one way or other served in much the same way--either in a physical or metaphysical point of view, that is; and so the u β¦ βΆ
- ...The silent reminiscence of hardships departed, is sweeter than the presence of delight. β¨ Herman Melville (1863). Redburn: His First Voyage: Being the Sailor-boy Confessions and Reminiscences O th β¦ βΆ
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