You cannot spill a drop of American blood without spilling the blood of the whole world…. We are not a nation, so much as a world. – Herman Melville
Is there some principal of nature which states that we never know the quality of what we have until it is gone? – Herman Melville
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. – Herman Melville
Faith, like a jackal, feeds among the tombs, and even from these dead doubts she gathers her most vital hope. – Herman Melville