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

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That author who draws a character, even though to common view incongruous in its parts, as the flying-squirrel, and, at differentperiods, as much at variance with itself as the caterpillar is with the butterfly into which it changes, may yet, in so doing, be not false but faithful to facts.
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To a sensitive being, pity is not seldom pain.
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Madman! Look through my eyes if thou hast none of thine own.
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I am a man who, from his youth upwards, has been filled with a profound conviction that the easiest way of life is the best.
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Let us only hate hatred and once give love a play, we will fall in love with a unicorn.
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We cannot live for ourselves alone.
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All wars are boyish, and are fought by boys, The champions and enthusiasts of the state: Turbid ardors and vain joys Not barrenly abate-- Stimulants to the power mature, Preparatives of fate.
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Civilization has not ever been the brother of equality. Freedom was born among the wild eyries in the mountains and barbarous tribes have sheltered under her wings, when the enlightened people of the plain have nestled under different pinions.
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It is the easiest thing in the world for a man to look as if he had a great secret in him.
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