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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.

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
Well
Gratification
Thing
Prayers
Men
Pray
Praying
Youth
Prayer
Wells
Might
Responsive

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A smile is the chosen vehicle of all ambiguities.
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At last the anchor was up, the sails were set, and off we glided. It was a sharp, cold Christmas and as the short northern day merged into night, we found ourselves almost broad upon the wintry ocean, whose freezing spray cased us in ice, as in polished armor.
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There are two places in the world where men can most effectively disappear - the city of London and the South Seas.
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Aye, aye! and I'll chase him round Good Hope, and round the Horn, and round the Norway Maelstrom, and round perdition's flames before I give him up.
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Men there are, who having quite done with the world, all its merely worldly contents are become so far indifferent, that they carelittle of what mere worldly imprudence they may be guilty.
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Stay true to the dreams of thy youth.
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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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He knows himself, and all that's in him, who knows adversity.
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In a multitude of acquaintances is less security, than in one faithful friend.
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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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When a companion's heart of itself overflows, the best one can do is to do nothing.
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Immortality is but ubiquity in time.
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Truth is ever incoherent, and when the big hearts strike together, the concussion is a little stunning.
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I have written a wicked book, and feel spotless as the lamb.
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There is no quality in this world that is not what it is merely by contrast. Nothing exists in itself.
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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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Poor people make a very poor business of it when they try to seem rich.
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We die, because we live.
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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.
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I will frankly confess that after passing a few weeks in the valley of the Marquesas, I formed a higher estimate of human nature than I had ever before entertained. But, alas, since then I have been one of the crew of a man-of- war, and the pent-up wickedness of five hundred men has nearly overturned all my previous theories.
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