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How feeble is all language to describe the horrors we inflict upon these wretches, whom we mason up in the cells of our prisons, and condemn to perpetual solitude in the very heart of our population.

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
Punishment
Inflict
Solitude
Horrors
Prison
Prisons
Horror
Feeble
Population
Condemn
Upon
Perpetual
Wretches
Language
Describe
Mason
Heart
Cells
Masons

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Madman! Look through my eyes if thou hast none of thine own.
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All we discover has been with us since the sun began to roll and much we discover, is not worth the discovering.
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Twelve o'clock! It is the natural centre, key-stone, and very heart of the day. At that hour, the sun has arrived at the top of his hill and as he seems to hang poised there a while, before coming down on the other side, it is but reasonable to suppose that he is then stopping to dine setting an eminent example to all mankind.
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In armies, navies, cities, or families, in nature herself, nothing more relaxes good order than misery.
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In childhood, death stirred me not in middle age, it pursued me like a prowling bandit on the road now, grown an old man, it boldly leads the way, and ushers me on.
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That great America on the other side of the sphere, Australia.
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There seems no reason why patriotism and narrowness should go together, or why intellectual impartiality should be confounded with political trimming, or why serviceable truth should keep cloistered be a cause not partisan.
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Ladies are like creeds if you cannot speak well of them, say nothing.
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The urbane activity with which a man receives money is really marvelous, considering that we so earnestly believe money to be the root of all earthly ills, and that on no account can a monied man enter heaven. Ah! how cheerfully we consign ourselves to perdition!
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Old age is always wakeful as if, the longer linked with life, the less man has to do with aught that looks like death.
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Man is a money-making animal, which propensity too often interferes with his benevolence.
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A man can be honest in any sort of skin.
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There is a savor of life and immortality in substantial fare. Like balloons, we are nothing till filled.
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You cannot hide the soul.
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Ah, Bartleby! Ah, humanity!
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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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