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Surrounded as we are by the wants and woes of our fellow-men, and yet given to follow our own pleasures, regardless of their pains, are we not like people sitting up with a corpse, and making merry in the house of the dead?

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
House
Follow
Pains
Given
Sitting
Surrounded
Men
Dead
Pleasures
Like
Wants
Selfishness
Woes
People
Pleasure
Regardless
Corpse
Suffering
Fellow
Woe
Pain
Fellows
Corpses
Making
Charity
Merry

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That mortal man who hath more of joy than sorrow in him, that mortal man cannot be true--not true, or undeveloped.
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He who goes oftenest round Cape Horn goes the most circumspectly.
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Thou hast evoked in me profounder spells than the evoking one, thou face! For me, thou hast uncovered one infinite, dumb, beseeching countenance of mystery, underlying all the surfaces of visible time and space.
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Youth is the time when hearts are large, And stirring wars Appeal to the spirit which appeals in turn To the blade it draws.
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A hermitage in the forest is the refuge of the narrow-minded misanthrope a hammock on the ocean is the asylum for the generous distressed.
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Thou wine art the friend of the friendless, though a foe to all.
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There is no dignity in wickedness, whether in purple or rags and hell is a democracy of devils, where all are equals.
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Top-heavy was the ship as a dinnerless student with all Aristotle in his head.
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True places are not found on maps.
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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.
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flight from tyranny does not of itself insure a safe asylum, far less a happy home.
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In this world of lies, Truth is forced to fly like a scared white doe in the woodlands and only by cunning glimpses will she reveal herself, as in Shakespeare and other masters of the great Art of Telling the Truth, even though it be covertly, and by snatches.
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Do not presume, well-housed, well-warmed, and well-fed, to criticize the poor
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It is well known, that the best productions of the best human intellects, are generally regarded by those intellects as mere immature freshman exercises, wholly worthless in themselves, except as initiatives for entering the great University of God after death.
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What troops Of generous boys in happiness thus bred Saturnians through life's Tempe led, Went from the North and came from the South, With golden mottoes in the mouth, To lie down midway on a bloody bed.
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Book! You lie there the fact is, you books must know your places. You'll do to give us the bare words and facts, but we come in to supply the thoughts.
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A good laugh is a mighty good thing, and rather too scarce a good thing.
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Who in the rainbow can draw the line where the violet tint ends and the orange tint begins?
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Charity, like poetry, should be cultivated, if only for its being graceful.
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