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"For it is often to be observed of the shallower men, that they are the very last to despond. It is the glory of the bladder that nothing can sink it; it is the reproach of a box of treasure, that once overboard it must drown."
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"The wealth of time is the only wealth that is more valuable than human resources."

"A muddied diamond is better than an unsullied pebble."

"The Protestants teachings affected the view of the populace to work."

"It is quite futile to argue that man is small compared to the cosmos, for man was always small compared to the nearest tree."

"It is good to focus, but never forget to look around. If you focus on the wrong target, you may miss seeing all of the beauty around you."

"Life is full of beauty, when we focus on the bliss of being."

"When the sun rises it casts a shadow on what does not shine as bright as it."

"But then every man is ludicrous if you look at him from outside, without taking into account what's going on in his heart and mind."

"The very same thing, don't you see, may be looked at tragically, and turned into a misery, or it may be looked at simply and even humorously. Possibly you are inclined to look at things too tragically."

"Through her eyes the day was new and anything was possible."
Explore more quotes by Herman Melville

"Is there some principal of nature which states that we never know the quality of what we have until it is gone?"

"The White Whale swam before him as the monomaniac incarnation of all those malicious agencies which some deep men feel eating them, till they are left living with half a heart and half a lung."

"Aye, aye, it must be so. I've oversailed him. How, got the start? Aye, he's chasing ME now; not I, HIM--that's bad."

"There is no dignity in wickedness, whether in purple or rags; and hell is a democracy of devils, where all are equals."

"His three boats stove around him, and oars and men both whirling in the eddies; one captain, seizing the line-knife from his broken prow, had dashed at the whale, as an Arkansas duellist at his foe, blindly seeking with a six inch blade to reach the fathom-deep life of the whale. That captain was Ahab. And then it was, that suddenly sweeping his sickle-shaped lower jaw benieath him, Moby Dick had reaped away Ahab's leg."

"Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off - then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can."

"There is no quality in this world that is not what it is merely by contrast. Nothing exists in itself."

"Close! stand close to me, Starbuck; let me look into a human eye; it is better than to gaze into sea or sky; better than to gaze upon God. By the green land; by the bright hearthstone! this is the magic glass, man; I see my wife and my child in thine eye. No, no; stay on board, on board!- lower not when I do; when branded Ahab gives chase to Moby Dick. That hazard shall not be thine. No, no! not with the far away home I see in that eye!"

"With no power to annul the elemental evil in him, though readily enough he could hide it; apprehending the good, but powerless to be it; a nature like Claggart's, surcharged with energy as such natures almost invariably are, what recourse is left to it but to recoil upon itself and, like the scorpion for which the Creator alone is responsible, act out to the end the part allotted it."
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