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Think of it. To go down to posterity as a 'man who lived among the cannibals.'

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
Among
Men
Think
Thinking
Cannibals
Cannibal
Posterity
Lived

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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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for there is no folly of the beast of the earth which is not infinitely outdone by the madness of men
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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.
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Courage is the most common and vulgar of the virtues.
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Swerve me? The path to my fixed purpose is laid with iron rails, whereon my soul is grooved to run. Over unsounded gorges, through the rifled hearts of mountains, under torrents' beds, unerringly I rush! Naught's an obstacle, naught's an angle to the iron way!
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Of all human events, perhaps, the publication of a first volume of verses is the most insignificant but though a matter of no moment to the world, it is still of some concern to the author.
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The great God absolute! The centre and circumference of all democracy! His omnipresence, our divine equality!
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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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Wag the world how it will, Leaves must be green in Spring.
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There is a savor of life and immortality in substantial fare. Like balloons, we are nothing till filled.
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Forty years after a battle it is easy for a non-combatant to reason about how it ought to have been fought. It is another thing personally and under fire to direct the fighting while involved in the obscuring smoke of it.
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Woe to him who seeks to please rather than appall.
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We cannot live for ourselves alone.
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If not against us, nature is not for us.
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beauty is like piety--you cannot run and read it tranquility and constancy, with, now-a-days, an easy chair, are needed.
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A good laugh is a mighty good thing, and rather too scarce a good thing.
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Who in the rainbow can draw the line where the violet tint ends and the orange tint begins? Distinctly we see the difference of the colors, but where exactly does the one first blendingly enter into the other? So with sanity and insanity.
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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.
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I am past scorching not easily can’st thou scorch a scar.
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Charity, like poetry, should be cultivated, if only for its being graceful.
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