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If some books are deemed most baneful and their sale forbid, how, then, with deadlier facts, not dreams of doting men? Those whom books will hurt will not be proof against events. Events, not books, should be forbid.

— Herman Melville The Encantadas (1854)

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More quotes by Herman Melville

Instinct and study; love and hate;
Audacity — reverence. These must mate,
And fuse with Jacob’s mystic heart,
To wrestle with the angel — Art.

Timoleon (1891)

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

Moby-Dick; or, The Whale (1851)

In armies, navies, cities, or families, in nature herself, nothing more relaxes good order than misery.

But I shall follow the endless, winding way, — the flowing river in the cave of man; careless whither I be led, reckless where I land.

Pierre; or, The Ambiguities (1852)

We Americans are the peculiar, chosen people — the Israel of our time; we bear the ark of the liberties of the world.

White-Jacket (1850)

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Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Herman Melville (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.