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The entire merit of a man can never be made known nor the sum of his demerits, if he have them. We are only known by our names as letters sealed up, we but read each other's superscriptions.

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
Character
Demerits
Made
Sealed
Never
Merit
Men
Letters
Entire
Names
Known
Read

More quotes by Herman Melville

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As in digging for precious metals in the mines, much earthy rubbish has first to be troublesomely handled and thrown out so, in digging in one's soul for the fine gold of genius, much dullness and common-place is first brought to light.
Herman Melville
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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
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You know nothing till you know all which is the reason we never know any thing.
Herman Melville
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What like a bullet can undeceive!
Herman Melville
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Who in the rainbow can draw the line where the violet tint ends and the orange tint begins? Distinctly we see the difference of the colors, but where exactly does the one first blendingly enter into the other? So with sanity and insanity.
Herman Melville
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All truth is profound.
Herman Melville
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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.
Herman Melville
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It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation.
Herman Melville
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The shadows of things are greater than themselves and the more exaggerated the shadow, the more unlike the substance.
Herman Melville
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The sweetest joys of life grow in the very jaws of its perils.
Herman Melville
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When my eye rested on an arid height, spirit partook of the barrenness. - Heartily wish Niebuhr & Strauss to the dogs. The deuce take their penetration & acumen. They have robbed us of the bloom.
Herman Melville
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My means are sane, my motives and my object mad.
Herman Melville
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To treat of human actions is to deal wholly with second causes.
Herman Melville
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Think of it. To go down to posterity as a 'man who lived among the cannibals.'
Herman Melville
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Praise when merited is not a boon: yet to a generous nature, is it pleasant to utter it.
Herman Melville
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Surely a gentle sister is the second best gift to a man and it is first in point of occurrence for the wife comes after.
Herman Melville
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There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes his whole universe for a vast practical joke.
Herman Melville
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Warmest climes but nurse the cruellest fangs: the tiger of Bengal crouches in spiced groves of ceaseless verdure. Skies the most effulgent but basket the deadliest thunders: gorgeous Cuba knows tornadoes that never swept tame northern lands.
Herman Melville
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All Profound things, and emotions of things are preceded and attended by Silence.
Herman Melville
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O Death, the Consecrator! Nothing so sanctifies a name As to be written--Dead. Nothing so wins a life from blame, So covers it from wrath and shame, As doth the burial-bed.
Herman Melville