Quote #7
In time of peril, like the needle to the loadstone, obedience, irrespective of rank, generally flies to him who is best fitted to command.
More from Herman Melville
- Familiarity with danger makes a brave man braver, but less daring. Thus with seamen: he who goes the oftenest round Cape Horn goes the most…
- We Americans are the peculiar, chosen people - the Israel of our time; we bear the ark of the liberties of the world.
- Oh, give me again the rover's life--the joy, the thrill, the whirl! Let me feel thee again, old sea! let me leap into thy saddle once more.…
- A man of true science... uses but few hard words, and those only when none other will answer his purpose; whereas the smatterer in science.…
- Many sensible things banished from high life find an asylum among the mob.
- Are there no Moravians in the Moon, that not a missionary has yet visited this poor pagan planet of ours, to civilise civilisation and chri…
- 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...
- I had now been on board the frigate upward of a year, and remained unscourged; the ship was homeward-bound, and in a few weeks, at most, I …