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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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As a man-of-war that sails through the sea, so this earth that sails through the air. We mortals are all on board a fast-sailing,never-sinking world-frigate, of which God was the shipwright and she is but one craft in a Milky-Way fleet, of which God is the Lord High Admiral.
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Charity, like poetry, should be cultivated, if only for its being graceful.
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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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Evil is the chronic malady of the universe, and checked in one place, breaks forth in another.
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A true military officer is in one particular like a true monk. Not with more self-abnegation will the latter keep his vows of monastic obedience than the former his vows of allegiance to martial duty.
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We die of too much life.
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Heaven have mercy on us all - Presbyterians and Pagans alike - for we are all somehow dreadfully cracked about the head, and sadly need mending.
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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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That mortal man who hath more of joy than sorrow in him, that mortal man cannot be true--not true, or undeveloped.
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Dollars damn me and the malicious Devil is forever grinning in upon me, holding the door ajar. ... What I feel most moved to write, that is banned - it will not pay. Yet, altogether, write the other way I cannot. So the product is a final hash, and all my books are botches.
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We cannot live for ourselves alone.
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No philosophers so thoroughly comprehend us as dogs and horses.
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For whatever is truly wondrous and fearful in man, never yet was put into words or books.
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Students of history are horror-struck at the massacres of old but in the shambles, men are being murdered to-day.
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It is plain and demonstrable, that much ale is not good for Yankee, and operates differently upon them from what it does upon a Briton ale must be drank in a fog and a drizzle.
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There are times when even the most potent governor must wink at transgression, in order to preserve the laws inviolate for the future.
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Talk not to me of blasphemy, man I'd strike the sun if it insulted me.
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Prayer draws us near to our own souls.
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