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There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes his whole universe for a vast practical joke.

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
Life
Strange
Mixed
Takes
Practicals
Call
Practical
Times
Joke
Universe
Occasions
Certain
Vast
Whole
Affair
Men
Jokes
Queer

More quotes by Herman Melville

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Better be secure under one king, than exposed to violence from twenty millions of monarchs, though oneself be one of them.
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Struck dead by an angel of God! Yet the angel must hang!
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...The silent reminiscence of hardships departed, is sweeter than the presence of delight.
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The friendship of fine-hearted, generous boys, nurtured amid the romance-engendering comforts and elegancies of life, sometimes transcends the bounds of mere boyishness, and revels for a while in the empyrean of a love which only comes short, by one degree, of the sweetest sentiment entertained between the sexes.
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In armies, navies, cities, or families, in nature herself, nothing more relaxes good order than misery.
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To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme. No great and enduring volume can ever be written on the flea, though many there be that have tried it.
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You cannot hide the soul.
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The fact is, that among his hunters at least, the whale would by all hands be considered a noble dish, were there not so much of him but when you come to sit down before a meat-pie nearly one hundred feet long, it takes away your appetite.
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Immortality is but ubiquity in time.
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The drama's done. Why then here does any one step forth? — Because one did survive the wreck.
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That mortal man who hath more of joy than sorrow in him, that mortal man cannot be true--not true, or undeveloped.
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At banquets surfeit not, but fill partake, and retire and eat not again till you crave.
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He, who, in view of its inconsistencies, says of human nature the same that, in view of its contrasts, is said of the divine nature, that it is past finding out, thereby evinces a better appreciation of it than he who, by always representing it in a clear light, leaves it to be inferred that he clearly knows all about it.
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There's magic in the water that draws all men away form the land, that leads them over hills, down creeks and streams and rivers to the sea.
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Surely a gentle sister is the second best gift to a man and it is first in point of occurrence for the wife comes after.
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I am, as I am whether hideous, or handsome, depends upon who is made judge.
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No mercy, no power but its own controls it. Panting and snorting like a mad battle steed that has lost its rider, the masterless ocean overruns the globe.
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I do not think I have any uncharitable prejudice against the rattlesnake, still, I should not like to be one.
Herman Melville
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The sweetest joys of life grow in the very jaws of its perils.
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Nature is nobody's ally.
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