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All wars are boyish, and are fought by boys, The champions and enthusiasts of the state: Turbid ardors and vain joys Not barrenly abate-- Stimulants to the power mature, Preparatives of fate.

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
Vain
Stimulants
Fate
Ardor
Boys
Champions
Joy
Joys
State
Fought
War
Mature
Abate
Power
Champion
Enthusiasts
States
Wars
Boyish

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Students of history are horror-struck at the massacres of old but in the shambles, men are being murdered to-day.
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The march of conquest through wild provinces, may be the march of Mind but not the march of Love.
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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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Is he mad? Anyway there's something on his mind, as sure as there must be something on a deck when it cracks.
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God help thee, old man, thy thoughts have created a creature in thee and he whose intense thinking thus makes him a Prometheus a vulture feeds upon that heart for ever that vulture the very creature he creates.
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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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Warmest climes but nurse the cruellest fangs: the tiger of Bengal crouches in spiced groves of ceaseless verdure. Skies the most effulgent but basket the deadliest thunders: gorgeous Cuba knows tornadoes that never swept tame northern lands.
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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.
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We may have civilized bodies and yet barbarous souls. We are blind to the real sights of this world deaf to its voice and dead to its death. And not till we know, that one grief outweighs ten thousand joys will we become what Christianity is striving to make us.
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When my eye rested on an arid height, spirit partook of the barrenness. - Heartily wish Niebuhr & Strauss to the dogs. The deuce take their penetration & acumen. They have robbed us of the bloom.
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I would prefer not to.
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He knows himself, and all that's in him, who knows adversity.
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Ah, Bartleby! Ah, humanity!
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Many sensible things banished from high life find an asylum among the mob.
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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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The man's (a heathen south sea islander) a human being, just as I am he has just as much reason to fear me, as I have to be afraid of him. Better sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunken Christian.
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There's something ever egotistical in mountain-tops and towers, and all other grand and lofty things.
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Let us pray that the great historic tragedy of our time may not have been enacted without instructing our whole beloved country through terror and pity and may fulfillment verify in the end those expectations which kindle the bards of Progress and Humanity.
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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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If there be any thing a man might well pray against, that thing is the responsive gratification of some of the devoutest prayers of his youth.
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