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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.

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
Childhood
Prowling
Middle
Bandits
Age
Stirred
Death
Boldly
Way
Pursued
Men
Grown
Like
Leads
Ushers
Road
Bandit

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Zeal is not of necessity religion, neither is it always of the same essence with poetry or patriotism.
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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.
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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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To be hated cordially, is only a left-handed compliment.
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What like a bullet can undeceive!
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Much of a man's character will be found betokened in his backbone. I would rather feel your spine than your skull, whoever you are. A thin joist of a spine never yet upheld a full and noble soul.
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In our own hearts, we mold the whole world's hereafters and in our own hearts we fashion our own gods.
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It is better to fail in originality, than to succeed in imitation. He who has never failed somewhere, that man can not be great. Failure is the true test of greatness.
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Man is a money-making animal, which propensity too often interferes with his benevolence.
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I am past scorching not easily can’st thou scorch a scar.
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It is not down in any map true places never are.
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There are times when even the most potent governor must wink at transgression, in order to preserve the laws inviolate for the future.
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Yet habit - strange thing! what cannot habit accomplish?
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It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation.
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Struck dead by an angel of God! Yet the angel must hang!
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A noble craft, but somehow a most melancholy! All noble things are touched with that.
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beauty is like piety--you cannot run and read it tranquility and constancy, with, now-a-days, an easy chair, are needed.
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We should, if possible, prove a teacher to posterity, instead of being the pupil of by-gone generations. More shall come after us than have gone before the world is not yet middle-aged.
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Is it possible, after all, that spite of bricks and shaven faces, this world we live in is brimmed with wonders, and I and all mankind, beneath our garbs of common-placeness, conceal enigmas that the stars themselves, and perhaps the highest seraphim can not resolve?
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