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The American, who up to the present day, has evinced, in Literature, the largest brain with the largest heart, that man is Nathaniel Hawthorne.

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
Present
Brain
Literature
American
Heart
Evinced
Men
Nathaniel
Hawthorne
Largest

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An intense copper calm, like a universal yellow lotus, was more and more unfolding its noiseless measureless leaves upon the sea.
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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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Man is a money-making animal, which propensity too often interferes with his benevolence.
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All deep, earnest thinking is but the intrepid effort of the soul to keep the open independence of her sea, while the wildest winds of heaven and earth conspire to cast her on the treacherous, slavish shore.
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Will you, or will you not, quit me? I now demanded in a sudden passion, advancing close to him. I would prefer not to quit you, he replied, gently emphasizing the not.
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A man can be honest in any sort of skin.
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He, who, in view of its inconsistencies, says of human nature the same that, in view of its contrasts, is said of the divine nature, that it is past finding out, thereby evinces a better appreciation of it than he who, by always representing it in a clear light, leaves it to be inferred that he clearly knows all about it.
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I will frankly confess that after passing a few weeks in the valley of the Marquesas, I formed a higher estimate of human nature than I had ever before entertained. But, alas, since then I have been one of the crew of a man-of- war, and the pent-up wickedness of five hundred men has nearly overturned all my previous theories.
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Students of history are horror-struck at the massacres of old but in the shambles, men are being murdered to-day.
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That author who draws a character, even though to common view incongruous in its parts, as the flying-squirrel, and, at differentperiods, as much at variance with itself as the caterpillar is with the butterfly into which it changes, may yet, in so doing, be not false but faithful to facts.
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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.
Herman Melville
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Who in the rainbow can draw the line where the violet tint ends and the orange tint begins?
Herman Melville
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At banquets surfeit not, but fill partake, and retire and eat not again till you crave.
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There are doubts, sir, which, if man have them, it is not man that can solve them.
Herman Melville
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But I shall follow the endless, winding way, — the flowing river in the cave of man careless whither I be led, reckless where I land.
Herman Melville
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Our institutions have a potent digestion, and may in time convert and assimilate to good all elements thrown in, however originally alien.
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And yet self-knowledge is thought by some not so easy. Who knows, my dear sir, but for a time you may have taken yourself for somebody else? Stranger things have happened.
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Talk not to me of blasphemy, man I'd strike the sun if it insulted me.
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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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I cherish the greatest respect towards everybody's religious obligations, no matter how comical.
Herman Melville