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There is sorrow in the world, but goodness too and goodness that is not greenness, either, no more than sorrow is.

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
World
Greenness
Goodness
Sorrow
Either
Literature

More quotes by Herman Melville

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Say what some poets will, Nature is not so much her own ever-sweet interpreter, as the mere supplier of that cunning alphabet, whereby selecting and combining as he pleases, each man reads his own peculiar lesson according to his own peculiar mind and mood.
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I would prefer not to.
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Wag the world how it will, Leaves must be green in Spring.
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Book! You lie there the fact is, you books must know your places. You'll do to give us the bare words and facts, but we come in to supply the thoughts.
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I cherish the greatest respect towards everybody's religious obligations, no matter how comical.
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He knows himself, and all that's in him, who knows adversity.
Herman Melville
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For as this appalling ocean surrounds the verdant land, so in the soul of man there lies one insular Tahiti, full of peace and joy, but encompassed by all the horrors of the half known life.
Herman Melville
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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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Better be secure under one king, than exposed to violence from twenty millions of monarchs, though oneself be one of them.
Herman Melville
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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.
Herman Melville
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Standing navies, as well as standing armies, serve to keep alive the spirit of war even in the meek heart of peace. In its very embers and smoulderings, they nourish that fatal fire, and half-pay officers, as the priests of Mars, yet guard the temple, though no god be there.
Herman Melville
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We may have civilized bodies and yet barbarous souls. We are blind to the real sights of this world deaf to its voice and dead to its death. And not till we know, that one grief outweighs ten thousand joys will we become what Christianity is striving to make us.
Herman Melville
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Soldier or sailor, the fighting man is but a fiend and the staff and body-guard of the Devil musters many a baton.
Herman Melville
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There are hardly five critics in America and several of them are asleep.
Herman Melville
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A noble craft, but somehow a most melancholy! All noble things are touched with that.
Herman Melville
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As in digging for precious metals in the mines, much earthy rubbish has first to be troublesomely handled and thrown out so, in digging in one's soul for the fine gold of genius, much dullness and common-place is first brought to light.
Herman Melville
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A man can be honest in any sort of skin.
Herman Melville
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Our souls belong to our bodies, not our bodies to our souls.
Herman Melville
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Poor people make a very poor business of it when they try to seem rich.
Herman Melville
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There is no quality in this world that is not what it is merely by contrast. Nothing exists in itself.
Herman Melville