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Familiarity with danger makes a brave man braver, but less daring. Thus with seamen: he who goes the oftenest round Cape Horn goes the most circumspectly.
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
Goes
Horns
Less
Familiarity
Makes
Daring
Oftenest
Men
Round
Seamen
Rounds
Braver
Thus
Cape
Brave
Capes
Danger
Horn
More quotes by Herman Melville
Forty years after a battle it is easy for a non-combatant to reason about how it ought to have been fought. It is another thing personally and under fire to direct the fighting while involved in the obscuring smoke of it.
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I have written a wicked book, and feel spotless as the lamb. Ineffable socialities are in me. I would sit down and dine with you and all the gods in old Rome's Pantheon. It is a strange feeling--no hopefulness is in it, no despair. Content--that is it and irresponsibility but without licentious inclination.
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A man can be honest in any sort of skin.
Herman Melville
all mankind, not excluding Americans, are sinners--miserable sinners, as even no few Bostonians themselves nowadays contritely respond in the liturgy.
Herman Melville
...The silent reminiscence of hardships departed, is sweeter than the presence of delight.
Herman Melville
Top-heavy was the ship as a dinnerless student with all Aristotle in his head.
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Real strength never impairs beauty or harmony, but it often bestows it, and in everything imposingly beautiful, strength has much to do with the magic.
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But I shall follow the endless, winding way, — the flowing river in the cave of man careless whither I be led, reckless where I land.
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There is sorrow in the world, but goodness too and goodness that is not greenness, either, no more than sorrow is.
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Let faith oust fact let fancy oust memory I look deep down and do believe.
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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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Beneath those stars is a universe of gliding monsters.
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The great God absolute! The centre and circumference of all democracy! His omnipresence, our divine equality!
Herman Melville
Lo! ye believers in gods all goodness, and in man all ill, lo you! see the omniscient gods oblivious of suffering man and man, though idiotic, and knowing not what he does, yet full of the sweet things of love and gratitude.
Herman Melville
My means are sane, my motives and my object mad.
Herman Melville
Whenever we discover a dislike in us, toward any one, we should ever be a little suspicious of ourselves.
Herman Melville
At banquets surfeit not, but fill partake, and retire and eat not again till you crave.
Herman Melville
Heaven have mercy on us all - Presbyterians and Pagans alike - for we are all somehow dreadfully cracked about the head, and sadly need mending.
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Seat thyself sultanically among the moons of Saturn, and take high abstracted man alone and he seems a wonder, a grandeur, and a woe. But from that same point, take mankind in mass, and for the most part, they seem a mob of unnecessary duplicates, both contemporary and hereditary.
Herman Melville
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