6 Herman Melville Quotes on War

Herman Melville quotes on war

38. Nothing so aggravates an earnest person as a passive resistance.

45. At the height of their madness The night winds pause, Recollecting themselves; But no lull in these wars.

46. Youth is the time when hearts are large, And stirring wars Appeal to the spirit which appeals in turn To the blade it draws.

47. What troops Of generous boys in happiness thus bred- Saturnians through life's Tempe led, Went from the North and came from the South, With golden mottoes in the mouth, To lie down midway on a bloody bed.

53. In war-time on the field or in the fleet, a mortal punishment decreed by a drum-head court-on the field sometimes decreed by but a nod from the General-follows without delay on the heel of conviction without appeal.

56. Marvel not that having been made acquainted with the young sailor's essential innocence (an irruption of heretic thought hard to suppress) the worthy man lifted not a finger to avert the doom of such a martyr to martial discipline. So to do would not only have been as idle as invoking the desert, but would also have been an audacious transgression of the bounds of his function, one as exactly prescribed to him by military law as that of the boatswain or any other naval officer. Bluntly put, a chaplain is the minister of the Prince of Peace serving in the host of the God of War-Mars. As such, he is as incongruous as a musket would be on the altar at Christmas. Why then is he there? Because he indirectly subserves the purpose attested by the cannon; because too he lends the sanction of the religion of the meek to that which practically is the abrogation of everything but brute Force.