In armies, navies, cities, or families, in nature herself, nothing more relaxes good order than misery.
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Quotes by Herman Melville
in Quotes & Aphorisms (Wisdom)
Thus it often is, that the constant friction of illiberal minds wears out at last the best resolves of the more generous.
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Says a writer whom few know: "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. Much so with respect to other emergencies involving considerations both practical and moral, and when it is imperative promptly to act."
from the book "" by Herman Melville
in Quotes & Aphorisms (Wisdom)
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. And if it be said, that continual success is a proof that a man wisely knows his powers, it is only to be added, that, in that case, he knows them to be small. Let us believe it, then, once for all, that there is no hope for us in these smooth pleasing writers that know their powers.
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in Quotes & Aphorisms (Life)
Youth is the time when hearts are large.
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Ah, happiness courts the light, so we deem the world is gay, but misery hides aloof, so we deem that misery there is none.
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in Quotes & Aphorisms (Wisdom)
Of all the preposterous assumptions of humanity over humanity, nothing exceeds most of the criticisms made on the habits of the poor by the well-housed, well-warmed, and well-fed.
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War being the greatest of evils, all its accessories necessarily partake of the same character.
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Thou wine art the friend of the friendless, though a foe to all.
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It was not a very white jacket, but white enough, in all conscience, as the sequel will show.
The way I came by it was this...
from the book "White-Jacket, Or, the World in a Man-Of-War" by Melville Herman