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All things that God would have us do are hard for us to do--remember that--and hence, he oftener commands us than endeavours to persuade.

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
Hard
Oftener
Things
Endeavour
Would
Commands
Persuade
Hence
Command
God
Remember
Endeavours

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For though consciences are as unlike as foreheads, every intelligence, not including the Scriptural devils who believe and tremble has one.
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For as this appalling ocean surrounds the verdant land, so in the soul of man there lies one insular Tahiti, full of peace and joy, but encompassed by all the horrors of the half known life.
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You cannot hide the soul.
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The worst of our evils we blindly inflict upon ourselves our officers cannot remove them, even if they would.
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The Past is the textbook of tyrants the Future the Bible of the Free. Those who are solely governed by the Past stand like Lot's wife, crystallized in the act of looking backward, and forever incapable of looking before.
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Amity itself can only be maintained by reciprocal respect, and true friends are punctilious equals.
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Let us only hate hatred and once give love a play, we will fall in love with a unicorn.
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In armies, navies, cities, or families, in nature herself, nothing more relaxes good order than misery.
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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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Tis no dishonor when he who would dishonor you, only dishonors himself.
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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 great God absolute! The centre and circumference of all democracy! His omnipresence, our divine equality!
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If you are poor, avoid wine as a costly luxury if you are rich, shun it as a fatal indulgence. Stick to plain water.
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Though amid all the smoking horror and diabolism of a sea-fight, sharks will be seen longingly gazing up to the ship's decks, like hungry dogs round a table where red meat is being carved, ready to bolt down every killed man that is tossed to them.
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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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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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What like a bullet can undeceive!
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Though the ancients were ignorant of the principles of Christianity there were in them the germs of its spirit.
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Whenever we discover a dislike in us, toward any one, we should ever be a little suspicious of ourselves.
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No mercy, no power but its own controls it. Panting and snorting like a mad battle steed that has lost its rider, the masterless ocean overruns the globe.
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