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

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One of the coolest and wisest hours a man has, is just after he awakes in the morning.
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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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You cannot spill a drop of American blood without spilling the blood of the whole world.... We are not a nation, so much as a world.
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I have written a wicked book, and feel spotless as the lamb.
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A book in a man's brain is better off than a book bound in calf - at any rate it is safer from criticism.
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It is hard to be finite upon an infinite subject, and all subjects are infinite.
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That author who draws a character, even though to common view incongruous in its parts, as the flying-squirrel, and, at differentperiods, as much at variance with itself as the caterpillar is with the butterfly into which it changes, may yet, in so doing, be not false but faithful to facts.
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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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I am a man who, from his youth upwards, has been filled with a profound conviction that the easiest way of life is the best.
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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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O Death, the Consecrator! Nothing so sanctifies a name As to be written--Dead. Nothing so wins a life from blame, So covers it from wrath and shame, As doth the burial-bed.
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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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There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes his whole universe for a vast practical joke.
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Yet habit - strange thing! what cannot habit accomplish?
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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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No philosophers so thoroughly comprehend us as dogs and horses.
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Man and boy, I have lived ever since I can remember.
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To be hated cordially, is only a left-handed compliment.
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Towards thee I roll, thou all-destroying but unconquering whale... from hell's heart I stab at thee.
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Benevolent desires, after passing a certain point, can not undertake their own fulfillment without incurring the risk of evils beyond those sought to be remedied.
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