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The worst of our evils we blindly inflict upon ourselves our officers cannot remove them, even if they would.

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
Upon
Evil
Cannot
Blindly
Even
Inflict
Would
Evils
Officers
Remove
Worst

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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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If not against us, nature is not for us.
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Struck dead by an angel of God! Yet the angel must hang!
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Personal prudence, even when dictated by quite other than selfish considerations, surely is no special virtue in a military man while an excessive love of glory, impassioning a less burning impulse, the honest sense of duty, is the first.
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It is better to fail in originality, than to succeed in imitation. He who has never failed somewhere, that man can not be great. Failure is the true test of greatness.
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Ah, Bartleby! Ah, humanity!
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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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Madman! Look through my eyes if thou hast none of thine own.
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Top-heavy was the ship as a dinnerless student with all Aristotle in his head.
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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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Where do murderers go, man! Who's to doom, when the judge himself is dragged to the bar?
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truly to enjoy bodily warmth, some small part of you must be cold, for there is no quality in this world that is not what it is merely by contrast. Nothing exists in itself. If you flatter yourself that you are all over comfortable, and have been so a long time, then you cannot be said to be comfortable any more.
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He who goes oftenest round Cape Horn goes the most circumspectly.
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People seem to have a great love for names. For to know a great many names seems to look like knowing a good many things.
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Standing navies, as well as standing armies, serve to keep alive the spirit of war even in the meek heart of peace. In its very embers and smoulderings, they nourish that fatal fire, and half-pay officers, as the priests of Mars, yet guard the temple, though no god be there.
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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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