Quote

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.

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
Many
Tried
Must
Produce
Flea
Great
Choose
Fleas
Writing
Written
Enduring
Literature
Mighty
Though
Volume
Ever
Theme
Book
Endure

More quotes by Herman Melville

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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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Some dying men are the most tyrannical and certainly, since they will shortly trouble us so little for evermore, the poor fellows ought to be indulged.
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Aye, aye! and I'll chase him round Good Hope, and round the Horn, and round the Norway Maelstrom, and round perdition's flames before I give him up.
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But as in landlessness alone resides the highest truth, shoreless, indefinite as God - so better is it to perish in that howling infinite, than be ingloriously dashed upon the lee, even if that were safety! For worm-like, then, oh! who would craven crawl to land!
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We die of too much life.
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The march of conquest through wild provinces, may be the march of Mind but not the march of Love.
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When my eye rested on an arid height, spirit partook of the barrenness. - Heartily wish Niebuhr & Strauss to the dogs. The deuce take their penetration & acumen. They have robbed us of the bloom.
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Meditation and water are wedded for ever.
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I am past scorching not easily can’st thou scorch a scar.
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It is hard to be finite upon an infinite subject, and all subjects are infinite.
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In armies, navies, cities, or families, in nature herself, nothing more relaxes good order than misery.
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I could...see in Emerson...that had he lived in those days when the world was made, he might have offered some valuable suggestions.
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Man, in the ideal, is so noble and so sparkling, such a grand and glowing creature, that over any ignominious blemish in him all his fellows should run to throw their costliest robes.
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Madman! Look through my eyes if thou hast none of thine own.
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Nothing so aggravates an earnest person as a passive resistance.
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He who goes oftenest round Cape Horn goes the most circumspectly.
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Appalling is the soul of a man! Better might one be pushed off into the material spaces beyond the uttermost orbit of our sun, than once feel himself fairly afloat in himself.
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Familiarity with danger makes a brave man braver, but less daring. Thus with seamen: he who goes the oftenest round Cape Horn goes the most circumspectly.
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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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Though amid all the smoking horror and diabolism of a sea-fight, sharks will be seen longingly gazing up to the ship's decks, like hungry dogs round a table where red meat is being carved, ready to bolt down every killed man that is tossed to them.
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