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All deep, earnest thinking is but the intrepid effort of the soul to keep the open independence of her sea, while the wildest winds of heaven and earth conspire to cast her on the treacherous, slavish shore.

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
Wind
Winds
Open
Earnest
Effort
Shore
Heaven
Cast
Intrepid
Keep
Casts
Slavish
Earth
Independence
Conspire
Soul
Sea
Wildest
Thinking
Deep
Treacherous

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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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It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation.
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In our own hearts, we mold the whole world's hereafters and in our own hearts we fashion our own gods.
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Whatever has made, or does make, or may make music, should be held sacred as the golden bridle-bit of the Shah of Persia's horse,and the golden hammer, with which his hoofs are shod.
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I have written a wicked book, and feel spotless as the lamb.
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Let faith oust fact let fancy oust memory I look deep down and do believe.
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Do not presume, well-housed, well-warmed, and well-fed, to criticize the poor
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Much of a man's character will be found betokened in his backbone. I would rather feel your spine than your skull, whoever you are. A thin joist of a spine never yet upheld a full and noble soul.
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That great America on the other side of the sphere, Australia.
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It is hard to be finite upon an infinite subject, and all subjects are infinite.
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One trembles to think of that mysterious thing in the soul, which seems to acknowledge no human jurisdiction, but in spite of the individual's own innocence self, will still dream horrid dreams, and mutter unmentionable thoughts.
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contempt is as frequently produced at first sight as love.
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To treat of human actions is to deal wholly with second causes.
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Ladies are like creeds if you cannot speak well of them, say nothing.
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All visible objects, man, are but as pasteboard masks. But in each event — in the living act, the undoubted deed — there, some unknown but still reasoning thing puts forth the mouldings of its features from behind the unreasoning mask.
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The easiest way of life is the best.
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There never was a great man yet who spent all his life inland.
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In truth, a mature man who uses hair oil, unless medicinally, that man has probably got a quoggy spot in him somewhere.
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The consciousness of being deemed dead, is next to the presumable unpleasantness of being so in reality. One feels like his own ghost unlawfully tenanting a defunct carcass.
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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.
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