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That great America on the other side of the sphere, Australia.

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
Sphere
Spheres
Australia
Side
Sides
America
Great

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At my years, and with my disposition, or rather, constitution, one gets to care less and less for everything except downright goodfeeling. Life is so short, and so ridiculous and irrational (from a certain point of view) that one knows not what to make of it, unless--well, finish the sentence for yourself.
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The Past is the textbook of tyrants the Future the Bible of the Free. Those who are solely governed by the Past stand like Lot's wife, crystallized in the act of looking backward, and forever incapable of looking before.
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If Shakespeare has not been equalled, he is sure to be surpassed, and surpassed by an American born now or yet to be born.
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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.
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Civilization has not ever been the brother of equality. Freedom was born among the wild eyries in the mountains and barbarous tribes have sheltered under her wings, when the enlightened people of the plain have nestled under different pinions.
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Is there some principal of nature which states that we never know the quality of what we have until it is gone?
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There is no quality in this world that is not what it is merely by contrast. Nothing exists in itself.
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Man, in the ideal, is so noble and so sparkling, such a grand and glowing creature, that over any ignominious blemish in him all his fellows should run to throw their costliest robes.
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You must have plenty of sea-room to tell the truth in.
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What plays the mischief with the truth is that men will insist upon the universal application of a temporary feeling or opinion.
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Wag the world how it will, Leaves must be green in Spring.
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Lo! ye believers in gods all goodness, and in man all ill, lo you! see the omniscient gods oblivious of suffering man and man, though idiotic, and knowing not what he does, yet full of the sweet things of love and gratitude.
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Stripped of the cunning artifices of the tailor, and standing forth in the garb of Eden - what a sorry set of round-shouldered, spindle-shanked, crane-necked varlets would civilized men appear!
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I never fancied broiling fowls - though once broiled, judiciously buttered, and judgmatically salted and peppered, there is no one who will speak more respectfully, not to say reverentially, of a broiled fowl than I will.
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Towards thee I roll, thou all-destroying but unconquering whale... from hell's heart I stab at thee.
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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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The consciousness of being deemed dead, is next to the presumable unpleasantness of being so in reality. One feels like his own ghost unlawfully tenanting a defunct carcass.
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But oh! shipmates! on the starboard hand of every woe, there is a sure delight and higher the top of that delight, than the bottom of the woe is deep.
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People think that if a man has undergone any hardship, he should have a reward but for my part, if I have done the hardest possible day's work, and then come to sit down in a corner and eat my supper comfortably -why, then I don't think I deserve any reward for my hard day's work -for am I not now at peace? Is not my supper good?
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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.
Herman Melville