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We are not a nation, so much as a world for unless we claim all the world for our sire, like Melchisedec, we are without father or mother.

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
Much
Claim
Like
Claims
World
Unless
Nation
Nations
Father
Mother
Without
Sire

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Talk not to me of blasphemy, man I'd strike the sun if it insulted me.
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We die of too much life.
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We die, because we live.
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What like a bullet can undeceive!
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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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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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All Profound things, and emotions of things are preceded and attended by Silence.
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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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As for me, I am tormented with an everlasting itch for things remote. I love to sail forbidden seas, and land on barbarous coasts.
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He knows himself, and all that's in him, who knows adversity.
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Courage is the most common and vulgar of the virtues.
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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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Swerve me? The path to my fixed purpose is laid with iron rails, whereon my soul is grooved to run. Over unsounded gorges, through the rifled hearts of mountains, under torrents' beds, unerringly I rush! Naught's an obstacle, naught's an angle to the iron way!
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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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You know nothing till you know all which is the reason we never know any thing.
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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.
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To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme. No great and enduring volume can ever be written on the flea, though many there be that have tried it.
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Let America first praise mediocrity even, in her children, before she praises... the best excellence in the children of any other land.
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Top-heavy was the ship as a dinnerless student with all Aristotle in his head.
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Our souls belong to our bodies, not our bodies to our souls.
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