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We die of too much life.

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
Life
Dies
Death
Much

More quotes by Herman Melville

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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.
Herman Melville
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It is the horrible texture of a fabric that should be woven of ships' cables and hawsers. A Polar wind blows through it, and birds of prey hover over it.
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The drama's done. Why then here does any one step forth? — Because one did survive the wreck.
Herman Melville
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We may have civilized bodies and yet barbarous souls.
Herman Melville
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Personal prudence, even when dictated by quite other than selfish considerations, surely is no special virtue in a military man while an excessive love of glory, impassioning a less burning impulse, the honest sense of duty, is the first.
Herman Melville
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Towards thee I roll, thou all-destroying but unconquering whale... from hell's heart I stab at thee.
Herman Melville
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Say what some poets will, Nature is not so much her own ever-sweet interpreter, as the mere supplier of that cunning alphabet, whereby selecting and combining as he pleases, each man reads his own peculiar lesson according to his own peculiar mind and mood.
Herman Melville
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I would prefer not to.
Herman Melville
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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.
Herman Melville
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Is there some principal of nature which states that we never know the quality of what we have until it is gone?
Herman Melville
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At my years, and with my disposition, or rather, constitution, one gets to care less and less for everything except downright goodfeeling. Life is so short, and so ridiculous and irrational (from a certain point of view) that one knows not what to make of it, unless--well, finish the sentence for yourself.
Herman Melville
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Our souls belong to our bodies, not our bodies to our souls.
Herman Melville
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To be hated cordially, is only a left-handed compliment.
Herman Melville
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In a multitude of acquaintances is less security, than in one faithful friend.
Herman Melville
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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.
Herman Melville
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Ah, Bartleby! Ah, humanity!
Herman Melville
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The idea of Jehovah was born here... Out of the rude elements of the insignificant thoughts thoughts that are in all men, they reared the transcendent conception of a God.
Herman Melville
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...a man of true science uses few hard words, and those only when none other will answer his purpose Where as the smatterer in science...thinks that by mouthing hard words he understands hard things.
Herman Melville
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Woe to him who seeks to please rather than appall.
Herman Melville
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Thus it often is, that the constant friction of illiberal minds wears out at last the best resolves of the more generous.
Herman Melville