Quote

Swerve me? The path to my fixed purpose is laid with iron rails, whereon my soul is grooved to run. Over unsounded gorges, through the rifled hearts of mountains, under torrents' beds, unerringly I rush! Naught's an obstacle, naught's an angle to the iron way!

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
Purpose
Mountains
Rails
Running
Iron
Naught
Soul
Obstacles
Beds
Heart
Fixed
Rail
Unerringly
Way
Bed
Obstacle
Torrents
Hearts
Angle
Whereon
Mountain
Rush
Gorges
Path
Laid
Swerve

More quotes by Herman Melville

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for there is no folly of the beast of the earth which is not infinitely outdone by the madness of men
Herman Melville
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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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Forty years after a battle it is easy for a non-combatant to reason about how it ought to have been fought. It is another thing personally and under fire to direct the fighting while involved in the obscuring smoke of it.
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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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There are doubts, sir, which, if man have them, it is not man that can solve them.
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Any appellative at all savouring of arbitrary rank is unsuitable to a man of liberal and catholic mind.
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Think of it. To go down to posterity as a 'man who lived among the cannibals.'
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We Americans are the peculiar, chosen people - the Israel of our time we bear the ark of the liberties of the world.
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The path to my fixed purpose is laid with iron rails whereon my soul is grooved to run
Herman Melville
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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 urbane activity with which a man receives money is really marvelous, considering that we so earnestly believe money to be the root of all earthly ills, and that on no account can a monied man enter heaven. Ah! how cheerfully we consign ourselves to perdition!
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That great America on the other side of the sphere, Australia.
Herman Melville
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See how elastic our prejudices grow when once love comes to bend them.
Herman Melville
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Youth is immortal Tis the elderly only grow old!
Herman Melville
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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.
Herman Melville
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Praise when merited is not a boon: yet to a generous nature, is it pleasant to utter it.
Herman Melville
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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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People think that if a man has undergone any hardship, he should have a reward but for my part, if I have done the hardest possible day's work, and then come to sit down in a corner and eat my supper comfortably -why, then I don't think I deserve any reward for my hard day's work -for am I not now at peace? Is not my supper good?
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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.
Herman Melville
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Poor fish of Rodondo! in your victimized confidence, you are of the number of those who inconsiderately trust, while they do not understand, human nature.
Herman Melville