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It is better to fail in originality, than to succeed in imitation. He who has never failed somewhere, that man can not be great. Failure is the true test of greatness.

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
Failure
Imitation
Failing
Failed
True
Test
Better
Tests
Great
Fail
Never
Somewhere
Men
Greatness
Succeed
Originality

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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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We are off! The courses and topsails are set: the coral-hung anchor swings from the bow: and together, the three royals are given to the breeze, that follows us out to sea like the baying of a hound.
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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
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Youth is the time when hearts are large, And stirring wars Appeal to the spirit which appeals in turn To the blade it draws.
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In childhood, death stirred me not in middle age, it pursued me like a prowling bandit on the road now, grown an old man, it boldly leads the way, and ushers me on.
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We are only what we are not what we would be nor every thing we hope for. We are but a step in a scale, that reaches further above us than below.
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The worst of our evils we blindly inflict upon ourselves our officers cannot remove them, even if they would.
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An intense copper calm, like a universal yellow lotus, was more and more unfolding its noiseless measureless leaves upon the sea.
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He seemed to take to me quite as naturally and unbiddenly as I to him and when our smoke was over, he pressed his forehead against mine, clasped me round the waist, and said that henceforth we were married.
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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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A true military officer is in one particular like a true monk. Not with more self-abnegation will the latter keep his vows of monastic obedience than the former his vows of allegiance to martial duty.
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Surely no mere mortal who has at all gone down into himself will ever pretend that his slightest thought or act solely originates in his own defined identity.
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There are hardly five critics in America and several of them are asleep.
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Let faith oust fact let fancy oust memory I look deep down and do believe.
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But I shall follow the endless, winding way, — the flowing river in the cave of man careless whither I be led, reckless where I land.
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Queequeg was a native of Kokovoko, an island far away to the West and South. It is not down in any map true places never are.
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Our souls belong to our bodies, not our bodies to our souls.
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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.
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Truth is ever incoherent, and when the big hearts strike together, the concussion is a little stunning.
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