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The drama's done. Why then here does any one step forth? — Because one did survive the wreck.

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
Doe
Done
Wreck
Wrecks
Forth
Survive
Drama
Step
Steps

More quotes by Herman Melville

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Zeal is not of necessity religion, neither is it always of the same essence with poetry or patriotism.
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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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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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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.
Herman Melville
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All wars are boyish, and are fought by boys, The champions and enthusiasts of the state: Turbid ardors and vain joys Not barrenly abate-- Stimulants to the power mature, Preparatives of fate.
Herman Melville
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Evil is the chronic malady of the universe, and checked in one place, breaks forth in another.
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The fact is, that among his hunters at least, the whale would by all hands be considered a noble dish, were there not so much of him but when you come to sit down before a meat-pie nearly one hundred feet long, it takes away your appetite.
Herman Melville
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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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Real strength never impairs beauty or harmony, but it often bestows it, and in everything imposingly beautiful, strength has much to do with the magic.
Herman Melville
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Our souls belong to our bodies, not our bodies to our souls.
Herman Melville
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To the last, I grapple with thee From Hell's heart, I stab at thee For hate's sake, I spit my last breath at thee.
Herman Melville
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The American, who up to the present day, has evinced, in Literature, the largest brain with the largest heart, that man is Nathaniel Hawthorne.
Herman Melville
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Top-heavy was the ship as a dinnerless student with all Aristotle in his head.
Herman Melville
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To a sensitive being, pity is not seldom pain.
Herman Melville
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Of all the preposterous assumptions of humanity over humanity, nothing exceeds most of the criticisms made on the habits of the poor by the well-housed, well- warmed, and well-fed.
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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Tis no dishonor when he who would dishonor you, only dishonors himself.
Herman Melville
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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!
Herman Melville
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There are some persons in this world, who, unable to give better proof of being wise, take a strange delight in showing what they think they have sagaciously read in mankind by uncharitable suspicions of them.
Herman Melville
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What plays the mischief with the truth is that men will insist upon the universal application of a temporary feeling or opinion.
Herman Melville