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Heaven have mercy on us all - Presbyterians and Pagans alike - for we are all somehow dreadfully cracked about the head, and sadly need mending.

Herman Melville

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Herman Melville
Age: 72 †
Born: 1819
Born: August 1
Died: 1891
Died: September 28
Art Collector
Essayist
Lecturer
Literary Critic
Novelist
Poet
Sailor
Teacher
Writer
Manhattan borough
New York City
Hermann Melville
Herman Melvill
Needs
Sadly
Cracked
Alike
Somehow
Pagans
Mercy
Mending
Head
Dreadfully
Heaven
Presbyterians
Need
Pagan

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It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation.
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There are some persons in this world, who, unable to give better proof of being wise, take a strange delight in showing what they think they have sagaciously read in mankind by uncharitable suspicions of them.
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If you are poor, avoid wine as a costly luxury if you are rich, shun it as a fatal indulgence. Stick to plain water.
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As with ships, so with men he who turns his back to his foe gives him an advantage.
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The world is forever babbling of originality but there never yet was an original man, in the sense intended by the world the first man himself--who according to the Rabbins was also the first author--not being an original the only original author being God.
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Surely no mere mortal who has at all gone down into himself will ever pretend that his slightest thought or act solely originates in his own defined identity.
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Is he mad? Anyway there's something on his mind, as sure as there must be something on a deck when it cracks.
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In armies, navies, cities, or families, in nature herself, nothing more relaxes good order than misery.
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Whenever we discover a dislike in us, toward any one, we should ever be a little suspicious of ourselves.
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To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme.
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Praise when merited is not a boon: yet to a generous nature, is it pleasant to utter it.
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Nobody is so heartily despised as a pusillanimous, lazy, good-for-nothing, land-lubber a sailor has no bowels of compassion for him.
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It is well known, that the best productions of the best human intellects, are generally regarded by those intellects as mere immature freshman exercises, wholly worthless in themselves, except as initiatives for entering the great University of God after death.
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Real strength never impairs beauty or harmony, but it often bestows it, and in everything imposingly beautiful, strength has much to do with the magic.
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