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In their precise tracings-out and subtle causations, the strongest and fieriest emotions of life defy all analytical insight.

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
Emotions
Causation
Emotion
Tracing
Life
Analytical
Defy
Precise
Strongest
Subtle
Insight

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...a man of true science uses few hard words, and those only when none other will answer his purpose Where as the smatterer in science...thinks that by mouthing hard words he understands hard things.
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It is the easiest thing in the world for a man to look as if he had a great secret in him.
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For whatever is truly wondrous and fearful in man, never yet was put into words or books.
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He knows himself, and all that's in him, who knows adversity.
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Amity itself can only be maintained by reciprocal respect, and true friends are punctilious equals.
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Let me look into a human eye it is better than to gaze into sea or sky better than to gaze upon God.
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To treat of human actions is to deal wholly with second causes.
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I do not think I have any uncharitable prejudice against the rattlesnake, still, I should not like to be one.
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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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He seemed to take to me quite as naturally and unbiddenly as I to him and when our smoke was over, he pressed his forehead against mine, clasped me round the waist, and said that henceforth we were married.
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If some books are deemed most baneful and their sale forbid, how then with deadlier facts, not dreams of doting men? Those whom books will hurt will not be proof against events. Events, not books should be forbid.
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Let us pray that the great historic tragedy of our time may not have been enacted without instructing our whole beloved country through terror and pity and may fulfillment verify in the end those expectations which kindle the bards of Progress and Humanity.
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Leviathan is not the biggest fish — I have heard of Krakens.
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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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It may seem strange that of all men sailors should be tinkering at their last wills and testaments, but there are no people in the world more fond of that diversion.
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The easiest way of life is the best.
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If you are poor, avoid wine as a costly luxury if you are rich, shun it as a fatal indulgence. Stick to plain water.
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...that one most perilous and long voyage ended, only begins a second and a second ended, only begins a third, and so on, for ever and for aye. Such is the endlessness, yea, the intolerableness of all earthly effort.
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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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Are not half our lives spent in reproaches for foregone actions, of the true nature and consequences of which we were wholly ignorant at the time?
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