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The man's (a heathen south sea islander) a human being, just as I am he has just as much reason to fear me, as I have to be afraid of him. Better sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunken Christian.

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
Christian
Cannibal
Fear
Drunken
Reason
Heathen
Better
Sober
Human
Sea
Humans
South
Much
Afraid
Men
Sleep

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That mortal man who hath more of joy than sorrow in him, that mortal man cannot be true--not true, or undeveloped.
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At last the anchor was up, the sails were set, and off we glided. It was a sharp, cold Christmas and as the short northern day merged into night, we found ourselves almost broad upon the wintry ocean, whose freezing spray cased us in ice, as in polished armor.
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Civilization has not ever been the brother of equality. Freedom was born among the wild eyries in the mountains and barbarous tribes have sheltered under her wings, when the enlightened people of the plain have nestled under different pinions.
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To be called one thing, is oftentimes to be another.
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Though the ancients were ignorant of the principles of Christianity there were in them the germs of its spirit.
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A hermitage in the forest is the refuge of the narrow-minded misanthrope a hammock on the ocean is the asylum for the generous distressed.
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Aye, aye! and I'll chase him round Good Hope, and round the Horn, and round the Norway Maelstrom, and round perdition's flames before I give him up.
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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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There never was a great man yet who spent all his life inland.
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In thoughts of the visions of the night, I saw long rows of angels in paradise, each with his hands in a jar of spermaceti.
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There are hardly five critics in America and several of them are asleep.
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Yea, foolish mortals, Noah's flood is not yet subsided two thirds of the fair world it yet covers.
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Is he mad? Anyway there's something on his mind, as sure as there must be something on a deck when it cracks.
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In their precise tracings-out and subtle causations, the strongest and fieriest emotions of life defy all analytical insight.
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Whenever we discover a dislike in us, toward any one, we should ever be a little suspicious of ourselves.
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The drama's done. Why then here does any one step forth? — Because one did survive the wreck.
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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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A book in a man's brain is better off than a book bound in calf - at any rate it is safer from criticism.
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Thou wine art the friend of the friendless, though a foe to all.
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In truth, a mature man who uses hair oil, unless medicinally, that man has probably got a quoggy spot in him somewhere.
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