“I cannot tell you how thankful I am for your reminding me about the apocrypha here. For the moment, its being such escaped me.”

— Herman Melville

Source: The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade (1857), Ch. 45
Context: I cannot tell you how thankful I am for your reminding me about the apocrypha here. For the moment, its being such escaped me. Fact is, when all is bound up together, it's sometimes confusing. The uncanonical part should be bound distinct. And, now that I think of it, how well did those learned doctors who rejected for us this whole book of Sirach. I never read anything so calculated to destroy man's confidence in man. This son of Sirach even says — I saw it but just now: 'Take heed of thy friends'; not, observe, thy seeming friends, thy hypocritical friends, thy false friends, but thy friends, thy real friends — that is to say, not the truest friend in the world is to be implicitly trusted. Can Rochefoucault equal that? I should not wonder if his view of human nature, like Machiavelli's, was taken from this Son of Sirach. And to call it wisdom — the Wisdom of the Son of Sirach! Wisdom, indeed! What an ugly thing wisdom must be! Give me the folly that dimples the cheek, say I, rather than the wisdom that curdles the blood. But no, no; it ain't wisdom; it's apocrypha, as you say, sir. For how can that be trustworthy that teaches distrust?

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "I cannot tell you how thankful I am for your reminding me about the apocrypha here. For the moment, its being such esca…" by Herman Melville?

Herman Melville 144

American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet 1818–1891

Related quotes

“I cannot tell you how thankful I am for our little infinity. I wouldn't trade it for the world. You gave me forever within the numbered days, and I'm grateful.”

John Green book The Fault in Our Stars

Hazel Grace Lancaster, p. 260
The Fault in Our Stars (2012)

“I thank you, Papa, for your kindness. It is true about me to this day. I am foolish but I am not a fool.”

Grace Paley (1922–2007) American writer and activist

"The Loudest Voice" (1959)

“I love you. I worry about you. I wonder whether I tell you enough how I love you and want you and need you and how I am diminished… when you are not with me and how I am multiplied when you are here.”

Pat Frank book Alas, Babylon

Source: Alas, Babylon

“I cannot thank your law for my protection. I protect it. It is not in its power to protect me.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

1840s, The Conservative (1841)
Context: It will never make any difference to a hero what the laws are. His greatness will shine and accomplish itself unto the end, whether they second him or not. If he have earned his bread by drudgery, and in the narrow and crooked ways which were all an evil law had left him, he will make it at least honorable by his expenditure. Of the past he will take no heed; for its wrongs he will not hold himself responsible: he will say, All the meanness of my progenitors shall not bereave me of the power to make this hour and company fair and fortunate. Whatsoever streams of power and commodity flow to me, shall of me acquire healing virtue, and become fountains of safety. Cannot I too descend a Redeemer into nature? Whosoever hereafter shall name my name, shall not record a malefactor, but a benefactor in the earth. If there be power in good intention, in fidelity, and in toil, the north wind shall be purer, the stars in heaven shall glow with a kindlier beam, that I have lived. I am primarily engaged to myself to be a public servant of all the gods, to demonstrate to all men that there is intelligence and good will at the heart of things, and ever higher and yet higher leadings. These are my engagements; how can your law further or hinder me in what I shall do to men? On the other hand, these dispositions establish their relations to me. Wherever there is worth, I shall be greeted. Wherever there are men, are the objects of my study and love. Sooner of later all men will be my friends, and will testify in all methods the energy of their regard. I cannot thank your law for my protection. I protect it. It is not in its power to protect me. It is my business to make myself revered. I depend on my honor, my labor, and my dispositions for my place in the affections of mankind, and not on any conventions or parchments of yours.