QuoteProject
Faith, like a jackal, feeds among the tombs, and even from these dead doubts she gathers her most vital hope.
Herman Melville
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

Faith thrives even in the presence of uncertainty and despair.

This quote by Herman Melville suggests that faith can find nourishment in the darkest and most uncertain places, much like a jackal in a graveyard. It emphasizes that hope can emerge from doubt and loss, illustrating the resilience of belief in the face of adversity.

Themes

FaithHopeDoubtResilienceBeliefPhilosophy

In practice

Example use cases

In a motivational speech about overcoming obstacles.

More from Herman Melville

A good laugh is a mighty good thing, and rather too scarce a good thing; the more's the pity. So, if any one man, in his own proper person, afford stuff for a good joke to anybody, let him not be backward, but let him cheerfully allow himself to spend and be spent in that way. And the man that has anything bountifully laughable about him, be sure there is more in that man than you perhaps think for.
Herman MelvilleRead
The Marquesan girls dance all over; not only do their feet dance, but their arms, hands, fingers, ay, their very eyes seem to dance in their heads.
Herman MelvilleRead
Dream tonight of peacock tails, Diamond fields and spouter whales. Ills are many, blessing few, But dreams tonight will shelter you.
Herman MelvilleRead
Why did the old Persians hold the sea holy? Why did the Greeks give it a separate deity, and own brother Jove? Surely all this is not without meaning. And still deeper the meaning of that story of Narcissus, who because he could not grasp the tormenting mild image he saw in the fountain, plunged into it and was drowned. But that same image, we ourselves see in all rivers and oceans. It is the image of the ungraspable phantom of life; and this is the key to it all.
Herman MelvilleRead
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 MelvilleRead
You cannot spill a drop of American blood without spilling the blood of the whole world.... We are not a nation, so much as a world.
Herman MelvilleRead

Similar quotes

I think nighttime is dark so you can imagine your fears with less distraction.
Bill WattersonRead
A free press can, of course, be good or bad, but, most certainly without freedom, the press will never be anything but bad.
Albert CamusRead
A man who has no office to go, to I don't care who he is, is a trial of which you can have no conception.
George Bernard ShawRead
We see the world, not as it is, but as we are -- or, as we are conditioned to see it. When we open our mouths to describe what we see, we in effect describe ourselves, our perceptions, our paradigms.
Stephen CoveyRead
...for whether we want to or not, we belong to our time and we share in its opinions, its feelings, even its delusions.
Henri MatisseRead
I know this is insane, but i somehow wish i had been in auschwitz with my parents so i could really know what they lived through! I guess it's some kind of guilt about having had an easier life than they did.
Art SpiegelmanRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.