Only the man who says no is free
HERMAN MELVILLEWe are only what we are; not what we would be; nor every thing we hope for. We are but a step in a scale, that reaches further above us than below.
More Herman Melville Quotes
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A thing may be incredible and still be true; sometimes it is incredible because it is true.
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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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No philosophers so thoroughly comprehend us as dogs and horses.
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The worst of our evils we blindly inflict upon ourselves; our officers cannot remove them, even if they would.
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Ignorance is the parent of fear.
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To know how to grow old is the master work of wisdom, and one of the most difficult chapters in the great art of living.
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One of the coolest and wisest hours a man has, is just after he awakes in the morning.
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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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A whale ship was my Yale College and my Harvard.
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Better to sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunken Christian.
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Old age is always wakeful; as if, the longer linked with life, the less man has to do with aught that looks like death.
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There is one knows not what sweet mystery about this sea, whose gently awful stirrings seem to speak of some hidden soul beneath.
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Failure is the true test of greatness
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An utterly fearless man is a far more dangerous comrade than a coward.
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The only true infidelity is for a live man to vote himself dead.
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Benevolent desires, after passing a certain point, can not undertake their own fulfillment without incurring the risk of evils beyond those sought to be remedied.
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My body is but the lees of my better being.
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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.
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We are only what we are; not what we would be; nor every thing we hope for. We are but a step in a scale, that reaches further above us than below.
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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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All round and round does the world lie as in a sharp-shooter’s ambush, to pick off the beautiful illusions of youth, by the pitiless cracking rifles of the realities of age.
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What plays the mischief with the truth is that men will insist upon the universal application of a temporary feeling or opinion.
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Thinking is, or ought to be, a coolness and a calmness; and our poor hearts throb, and our poor brains beat too much for that.
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What is an atheist, but one who does not, or will not, see in the universe a ruling principle of love; and what a misanthrope, but one who does not, or will not, see in man a ruling principle of kindness?
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Tis no dishonor when he who would dishonor you, only dishonors himself.
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When among wild beasts, if they menace you, be a wild beast.
HERMAN MELVILLE