“Better sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunken Christian.”

Variant: Better to sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunk Christian.
Source: Moby-Dick or, The Whale

Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Better sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunken Christian." by Herman Melville?
Herman Melville photo
Herman Melville 144
American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet 1818–1891

Related quotes

Herman Melville photo

“We cannibals must help these Christians.”

Herman Melville (1818–1891) American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet

Source: Moby-Dick or, The Whale

Jack Kerouac photo
Arthur Rimbaud photo

“Now I am an outcast. I loathe my country. The best thing for me is a drunken sleep on the beach.”

Arthur Rimbaud (1854–1891) French Decadent and Symbolist poet

Source: Une saison en enfer; Illuminations; et autres textes

Pete Yorn photo
Musa al-Kadhim photo

“The sleep of a wise man is far better than the worship of an ignorant one during the night.”

Musa al-Kadhim (745–799) Seventh of the Twelve Imams and regarded by Sunnis as a renowned scholar

Ibn Shu’ba al-Harrani, Tuhaf al-'Uqul, p. 419.
Regarding Knowledge & Wisdom, Religious

Ludwig Klages photo

“Christianity is the war against sleep and dream.”

Ludwig Klages (1872–1956) German psychologist and philosopher

Source: Rhythmen und Runen (1944), p. 253

“This would explain why at any given time there are more cannibals than philosophical pessimists.”

Thomas Ligotti (1953) American horror author

The Conspiracy Against the Human Race: A Contrivance of Horror
Context: Optimism has always been an undeclared policy of human culture- one that grew out of our animal instincts to survive and reproduce- rather than an articulated body of thought. It is the default condition of our blood and cannot be effectively questioned by our minds or put in grave doubt by our pains. This would explain why at any given time there are more cannibals than philosophical pessimists.

Ausonius photo

“I've never written for a fasting man;
A taste of wine is good before my verse.
But sleep is better than a little wine,
For when sleeping one thinks my songs are dreams.”

Jejunis nil scribo: meum post pocula si quis<br/>legerit, hic sapiet.<br/>Sed magis hic sapiet, si dormiet: et putet ista<br/>somnia missa sibi.

Ausonius (310–395) poet

Jejunis nil scribo: meum post pocula si quis
legerit, hic sapiet.
Sed magis hic sapiet, si dormiet: et putet ista
somnia missa sibi.
"De Bissula", line 13; translation from Harold Isbell (trans.) The Last Poets of Imperial Rome (1971) p. 48.

Isaac Asimov photo

“There is nothing frightening about an eternal dreamless sleep. Surely it is better than eternal torment in Hell and eternal boredom in Heaven.”

Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, known for his works of science fiction …
W.B. Yeats photo

“Now days are dragon-ridden, the nightmare
Rides upon sleep: a drunken soldiery
Can leave the mother, murdered at her door,
To crawl in her own blood, and go scot-free.”

I, st. 4
The Tower (1928), Nineteen Hundred And Nineteen http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1547/

Related topics