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Failure is the test of greatness.

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
Greatness
Failure
Test
Tests

More quotes by Herman Melville

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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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Youth is the time when hearts are large.
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All we discover has been with us since the sun began to roll and much we discover, is not worth the discovering.
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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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Are there no Moravians in the Moon, that not a missionary has yet visited this poor pagan planet of ours, to civilise civilisation and christianise Christendom?
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In a multitude of acquaintances is less security, than in one faithful friend.
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At banquets surfeit not, but fill partake, and retire and eat not again till you crave.
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Honor lies in the mane of a horse.
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Think of it. To go down to posterity as a 'man who lived among the cannibals.'
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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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If there be any thing a man might well pray against, that thing is the responsive gratification of some of the devoutest prayers of his youth.
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Dream tonight of peacock tails, Diamond fields and spouter whales. Ills are many, blessing few, But dreams tonight will shelter you.
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Beneath those stars is a universe of gliding monsters.
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Love's secrets, being mysteries, ever pertain to the transcendent and the infinite and so they are as airy bridges, by which ourfurther shadows pass over into the regions of the golden mists and exhalations whence all poetical, lovely thoughts are engendered, and drop into us, as though pearls should drop from rainbows.
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God help thee, old man, thy thoughts have created a creature in thee and he whose intense thinking thus makes him a Prometheus a vulture feeds upon that heart for ever that vulture the very creature he creates.
Herman Melville
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It is the easiest thing in the world for a man to look as if he had a great secret in him.
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Surely a gentle sister is the second best gift to a man and it is first in point of occurrence for the wife comes after.
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For as this appalling ocean surrounds the verdant land, so in the soul of man there lies one insular Tahiti, full of peace and joy, but encompassed by all the horrors of the half known life.
Herman Melville
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There are hardly five critics in America and several of them are asleep.
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There never was a great man yet who spent all his life inland.
Herman Melville