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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.

Herman Melville

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Herman Melville
Age: 72 †
Born: 1819
Born: August 1
Died: 1891
Died: September 28
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New York City
Hermann Melville
Herman Melvill
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More quotes by Herman Melville

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Twelve o'clock! It is the natural centre, key-stone, and very heart of the day. At that hour, the sun has arrived at the top of his hill and as he seems to hang poised there a while, before coming down on the other side, it is but reasonable to suppose that he is then stopping to dine setting an eminent example to all mankind.
Herman Melville
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Where do murderers go, man! Who's to doom, when the judge himself is dragged to the bar?
Herman Melville
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We die, because we live.
Herman Melville
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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.
Herman Melville
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No mercy, no power but its own controls it. Panting and snorting like a mad battle steed that has lost its rider, the masterless ocean overruns the globe.
Herman Melville
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Truth uncompromisingly told will always have its ragged edges.
Herman Melville
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If not against us, nature is not for us.
Herman Melville
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I do not think I have any uncharitable prejudice against the rattlesnake, still, I should not like to be one.
Herman Melville
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Youth is immortal Tis the elderly only grow old!
Herman Melville
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One trembles to think of that mysterious thing in the soul, which seems to acknowledge no human jurisdiction, but in spite of the individual's own innocence self, will still dream horrid dreams, and mutter unmentionable thoughts.
Herman Melville
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I would prefer not to.
Herman Melville
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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.
Herman Melville
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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.
Herman Melville
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The great God absolute! The centre and circumference of all democracy! His omnipresence, our divine equality!
Herman Melville
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There are hardly five critics in America and several of them are asleep.
Herman Melville
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Though the ancients were ignorant of the principles of Christianity there were in them the germs of its spirit.
Herman Melville
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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.
Herman Melville
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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.
Herman Melville
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It is not down in any map true places never are.
Herman Melville
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Failure is the test of greatness.
Herman Melville