Herman Melville Quotes

Cannibals? Who is not a cannibal? I tell you it will be more tolerable for the Fejee that salted down a lean missionary in his cellar against a coming famine; it will be more tolerable for that provident Fejee, I say, in the day of judgement, than for thee, civilized and enlightened gourmand, who nailest geese to the ground and feastest on their bloated livers in thy pate de fois gras.

Cannibals are not to be found in the wilds of America only, but are reveling on the blood of every living people

Each person calls barbarism whatever is not his or her own practice.... We may call Cannibals barbarians, in respect to the rulesof reason, but not in respect to ourselves, who surpass them in every kind of barbarity.

I hold that such a question can never arise except in a society of cannibals.

If there had been any formidable body of cannibals in the country, Harry Truman would have promised to provide them with free missionaries fattened at the taxpayer's expense.

In the Fiji islands, it appears, cannibalism is now familiar. They eat thier own wives and children. We only devour widows' houses, and great merchants outwit and absorb the substance of small ones, and every man feeds on his neighbor's labor if he can. It is a milder form of cannibalism.

For starters, let's dispense with the cheap jokes about cannibalism. That means cracks about giving an arm and a leg - sorry - for a good book on the subject, or similar tasteless - sorry, again - attempts to make the subject more palatable - last one.

Anthropology is the science which tells us that people are the same the whole world over - except when they are different.

At his best, man is the noblest of all animals; separated from law and justice he is the worst.

I have no doubt that if you were to ask a cannibal, he would plead his religion for the heinous acts he does.

They eat little flesh except human flesh

It is an impious act to violate or break with the teeth a leek or an onion. O holy nation! whose gods grow for them in the gardens. Every table abstains from animals that have wool. It is a crime there to kill a kid, but human flesh is lawful food.

It was a sane, humane, and politic treaty which put an end to that horrible butchery of slaying the conquered, of giving no quarter to prisoners of war – Spanish barbarism that the patriots were forced to adopt themselves in reprisal, that had pushed back civilization, made the soil of Columbia an abode of cannibals and soaked it with innocent blood until all humanity shuddered, It was an advantage to us, fatal to the Spaniards. Their forces could only diminish; mine, augment and organize.

If you had to eat another human to survive, do you think they'd taste like their ethnic background?

In every civilized society there is found a race of men who retain the instincts of the aboriginal cannibal and live upon their fellow-men as a natural food.

Cultural anthropology is not valuable because it uncovers the archaic in the psychological sense. It is valuable because it is constantly rediscovering the normal.

Anthropology has reached that point of development where the careful investigation of facts shakes our firm belief in the far-reaching theories that have been built up. The complexity of each phenomenon dawns on our minds, and makes us desirous of proceeding more cautiously. Heretofore we have seen the features common to all human thought

Beyond [known peoples of black West Africa] to the south there is no civilization in the proper sense. There are only humans who are closer to dumb animals than to rational beings. They live in thickets and caves, and eat herbs and unprepared grain. They frequently eat each other. They cannot be considered human beings.

Everyone gives the title of barbarism to everything that is not in use in his own country.

Each man calls barbarism whatever is not his own practice; for indeed it seems we have no other test of truth and reason than the example and pattern of the opinions and customs of the country we live in

I consider myself something of a self-taught anthropologist.

I know of no department of natural science more likely to reward a man who goes into it thoroughly than anthropology. There is an immense deal to be done in the science pure and simple, and it is one of those branches of inquiry which brings one into contact with the great problems of humanity in every direction.

Ivory towers are as rare as bowling alleys in tribal cultures.

I think we're living in an age which despises humanity and despises bravery and doesn't need bravery because modern warfare has rather gone beyond bravery. It is a kind of warfare where people are fighting enemies they never see, killing people of whom they know nothing.

I was a cannibal for twenty-five years. For the rest I have been a vegetarian.