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Man, in the ideal, is so noble and so sparkling, such a grand and glowing creature, that over any ignominious blemish in him all his fellows should run to throw their costliest robes.

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
Noble
Sparkling
Ideals
Robes
Creatures
Glowing
Mankind
Grand
Running
Creature
Men
Ideal
Costliest
Fellows
Ignominious
Throw
Blemish

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Be sure of this, O young ambition, all mortal greatness is but disease.
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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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See how elastic our prejudices grow when once love comes to bend them.
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Madman! Look through my eyes if thou hast none of thine own.
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Beneath those stars is a universe of gliding monsters.
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A man of true science... thinks, that by mouthing hard words, he proves that he understands hard things.
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Appalling is the soul of a man! Better might one be pushed off into the material spaces beyond the uttermost orbit of our sun, than once feel himself fairly afloat in himself.
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Ah, Bartleby! Ah, humanity!
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The drama's done. Why then here does any one step forth? — Because one did survive the wreck.
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Of all human events, perhaps, the publication of a first volume of verses is the most insignificant but though a matter of no moment to the world, it is still of some concern to the author.
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This whole act's immutably decreed. 'Twas rehearsed by thee and me a billion years before this ocean rolled. Fool! I am the Fates' lieutenant I act under orders.
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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.
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We may have civilized bodies and yet barbarous souls.
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For whatever is truly wondrous and fearful in man, never yet was put into words or books.
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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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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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There are hardly five critics in America and several of them are asleep.
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Let me look into a human eye it is better than to gaze into sea or sky better than to gaze upon God.
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The path to my fixed purpose is laid with iron rails whereon my soul is grooved to run
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The symmetry of form attainable in pure fiction can not so readily be achieved in a narration essentially having less to do with fable than with fact. Truth uncompromisingly told will always have its ragged edges.
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