Quote

Much of a man's character will be found betokened in his backbone. I would rather feel your spine than your skull, whoever you are. A thin joist of a spine never yet upheld a full and noble soul.

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
Men
Found
Skulls
Character
Backbone
Soul
Spine
Feel
Thin
Feels
Whoever
Much
Noble
Never
Full
Upheld
Would
Rather
Skull

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When a companion's heart of itself overflows, the best one can do is to do nothing.
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What like a bullet can undeceive!
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Is there some principal of nature which states that we never know the quality of what we have until it is gone?
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The man that has anything bountifully laughable about him, be sure there is more in that man than you perhaps think for.
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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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Struck dead by an angel of God! Yet the angel must hang!
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Truth uncompromisingly told will always have its ragged edges.
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Failure is the test of greatness.
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For though consciences are as unlike as foreheads, every intelligence, not including the Scriptural devils who believe and tremble has one.
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If not against us, nature is not for us.
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I cherish the greatest respect towards everybody's religious obligations, no matter how comical.
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No town-bred dandy will compare with a country-bred one- I mean a downright bumpkin dandy- a fellow that, in the dog-days of summer, will mow his two acres in buckskin gloves for fear of tanning his hands.
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Youth is the time when hearts are large.
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The phantom-host has faded quite, Splendor and Terror gone-- Portent or promise--and gives way To pale, meek Dawn.
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flight from tyranny does not of itself insure a safe asylum, far less a happy home.
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When my eye rested on an arid height, spirit partook of the barrenness. - Heartily wish Niebuhr & Strauss to the dogs. The deuce take their penetration & acumen. They have robbed us of the bloom.
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