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In one word, Queequeg, said I, rather digressively hell is an idea first born on an undigested apple-dumpling and since then perpetuated through the hereditary dyspepsias nurtured by Ramadans.

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
Idea
Nurtured
Born
Hereditary
Ideas
Apple
Firsts
Apples
First
Hell
Undigested
Since
Dumplings
Word
Ramadan
Rather
Perpetuated

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In our man-of-war world, Life comes in at one gangway and Death goes overboard at the other. Under the man-of-war scourge, cursesmix with tears and the sigh and the sob furnish the bass to the shrill octave of those who laugh to drown buried griefs of their own.
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He, who, in view of its inconsistencies, says of human nature the same that, in view of its contrasts, is said of the divine nature, that it is past finding out, thereby evinces a better appreciation of it than he who, by always representing it in a clear light, leaves it to be inferred that he clearly knows all about it.
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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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In their precise tracings-out and subtle causations, the strongest and fieriest emotions of life defy all analytical insight.
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An utterly fearless man is a far more dangerous comrade than a coward.
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I know not all that may be coming, but be it what it will, I'll go to it laughing.
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It is impossible to talk or to write without apparently throwing oneself helplessly open.
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Standing navies, as well as standing armies, serve to keep alive the spirit of war even in the meek heart of peace. In its very embers and smoulderings, they nourish that fatal fire, and half-pay officers, as the priests of Mars, yet guard the temple, though no god be there.
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Failure is the test of greatness.
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There is a savor of life and immortality in substantial fare. Like balloons, we are nothing till filled.
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The shadows of things are greater than themselves and the more exaggerated the shadow, the more unlike the substance.
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To be hated cordially, is only a left-handed compliment.
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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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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!
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Nothing so aggravates an earnest person as a passive resistance.
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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.
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Ah, happiness courts the light so we deem the world is gay. But misery hides aloof so we deem that misery there is none.
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There are times when even the most potent governor must wink at transgression, in order to preserve the laws inviolate for the future.
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It may seem strange that of all men sailors should be tinkering at their last wills and testaments, but there are no people in the world more fond of that diversion.
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We die, because we live.
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