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Thus it often is, that the constant friction of illiberal minds wears out at last the best resolves of the more generous.

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
Thus
Minds
Constant
Illiberal
Lasts
Resolves
Last
Friction
Often
Wears
Best
Resolve
Mind
Generous

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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.
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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.
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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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Stripped of the cunning artifices of the tailor, and standing forth in the garb of Eden - what a sorry set of round-shouldered, spindle-shanked, crane-necked varlets would civilized men appear!
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Both the ancestry and posterity of Grief go further than the ancestry and posterity of Joy.
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Those of us who always abhorred slavery as an atheistical iniquity, gladly we join in the exulting chorus of humanity over its downfall.
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I do not think I have any uncharitable prejudice against the rattlesnake, still, I should not like to be one.
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contempt is as frequently produced at first sight as love.
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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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An utterly fearless man is a far more dangerous comrade than a coward.
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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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I baptize you not in the name of the father, but in the name of the devil. (Ego baptizo te in nomine patris, sed in nomine diaboli.)
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The easiest way of life is the best.
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Struck dead by an angel of God! Yet the angel must hang!
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If some books are deemed most baneful and their sale forbid, how then with deadlier facts, not dreams of doting men? Those whom books will hurt will not be proof against events. Events, not books should be forbid.
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flight from tyranny does not of itself insure a safe asylum, far less a happy home.
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Our institutions have a potent digestion, and may in time convert and assimilate to good all elements thrown in, however originally alien.
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Poor people make a very poor business of it when they try to seem rich.
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There is nothing so slipperily alluring as sadness we become sad in the first place by having nothing stirring to do we continue in it, because we have found a snug sofa at last.
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I have written a wicked book, and feel spotless as the lamb. Ineffable socialities are in me. I would sit down and dine with you and all the gods in old Rome's Pantheon. It is a strange feeling--no hopefulness is in it, no despair. Content--that is it and irresponsibility but without licentious inclination.
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