Skip to content
Shawords

Quote#Death

Nature has not implanted any power in man that was not meant to be…

Quote byHerman Melville · 1819–1891

Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: White-Jacket (1850), Ch. 67.

English (original)

Nature has not implanted any power in man that was not meant to be exercised at times, though too often our powers have been abused. The privilege, inborn and inalienable, that every man has of dying himself, and inflicting death upon another, was not given to us without a purpose. These are the last resources of an insulted and unendurable existence.

— Herman Melville

More from Herman Melville