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To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme.

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
Writing
Fleas
Mighty
Theme
Produce
Choose
Written
Book
Must

More quotes by Herman Melville

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Yea, foolish mortals, Noah's flood is not yet subsided two thirds of the fair world it yet covers.
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All we discover has been with us since the sun began to roll and much we discover, is not worth the discovering.
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...The silent reminiscence of hardships departed, is sweeter than the presence of delight.
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There are times when even the most potent governor must wink at transgression, in order to preserve the laws inviolate for the future.
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As for me, I am tormented with an everlasting itch for things remote. I love to sail forbidden seas, and land on barbarous coasts.
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Thou wine art the friend of the friendless, though a foe to all.
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When beholding the tranquil beauty and brilliancy of the ocean’s skin, one forgets the tiger heart that pants beneath it and would not willingly remember that this velvet paw but conceals a remorseless fang.
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A man can be honest in any sort of skin.
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Prayer draws us near to our own souls.
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The Past is the textbook of tyrants the Future the Bible of the Free. Those who are solely governed by the Past stand like Lot's wife, crystallized in the act of looking backward, and forever incapable of looking before.
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Where lies the final harbor, whence we unmoor no more? In what rapt ether sails the world, of which the weariest will never weary? Where is the foundling’s father hidden? Our souls are like those orphans whose unwedded mothers die in bearing them: the secret of our paternity lies in their grave, and we must there to learn it.
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We may have civilized bodies and yet barbarous souls.
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He who is ready to despair in solitary peril, plucks up a heart in the presence of another. In a plurality of comrades is much countenance and consolation.
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The path to my fixed purpose is laid with iron rails whereon my soul is grooved to run
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An utterly fearless man is a far more dangerous comrade than a coward.
Herman Melville
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No town-bred dandy will compare with a country-bred one- I mean a downright bumpkin dandy- a fellow that, in the dog-days of summer, will mow his two acres in buckskin gloves for fear of tanning his hands.
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Are not half our lives spent in reproaches for foregone actions, of the true nature and consequences of which we were wholly ignorant at the time?
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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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Dream tonight of peacock tails, Diamond fields and spouter whales. Ills are many, blessing few, But dreams tonight will shelter you.
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Leviathan is not the biggest fish — I have heard of Krakens.
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