Quotes from Nathaniel Philbrick

the greatest danger to America's future came from self-serving opportunism masquerading as patriotism. At

Living in the here and now, we are awash with sensations of the present, memories of the past, and expectations and fears for the future. Our actions are not determined by any one cause; they are the fulfillment of who we are at that particular moment. After that moment passes, we continue to evolve, to change, and our memories of that moment inevitably change with us as we live with the consequences of our past actions, consequences we were unaware of at the time.

Without the discovery of Arnold's treason in the fall of 1780, the american people might never have been forced to realize that the real threat to their liberties came not from without but from within.

Modern survival psychologists have determined that this "social"—as opposed to "authoritarian"—form of leadership is ill suited to the early stages of a disaster, when decisions must be made quickly and firmly. Only later, as the ordeal drags on and it is necessary to maintain morale, do social leadership skills become important.

It is painful to witness the death of the smallest of God's created beings, much more, one in which life is so vigorously maintained as the Whale! And when I saw this, the largest and most terrible of all created animals bleeding, quivering, dying a victim to the cunning of man, my feelings were indeed peculiar!

at sea, things appear different.

Faint heart never won fair lady," he wrote; "neither did it ever pursue and overtake an Indian village.

This meant that while the vast majority of the country's citizens stayed at home, the War for Independence was being waged, in large part, by newly arrived immigrants.

fluidity of the sea, not the rigidity of irresistible law, characterizes human conduct, especially in the midst of a calamity.

Nickerson began to understand, as only an adolescent on the verge of adulthood can understand, that the carefree days of childhood were gone forever: "Then it was that I, for the first time, realized that I was alone upon a wide and an unfeeling world . . . without one relative or friend to bestow one kind word upon me.

There was a saying on the island: "[I]t is a pity to spoil a good mate by making him a master.

This mortal life decays apace How soon the bubble's broke Adam and all his numerous race Are Vanity and Smoke.

Odd things happen in a battle, and the human heart has strange and gruesome depths and the human brain still stranger shallows;

Custer wrote, "I often think I would greatly prefer to cast my lot among those of my people adhered to the free open plains rather than submit to the confined limits of a reservation, there to be the recipient of the blessed benefits of civilization, with its vices thrown in without stint or measure.

As Herman Melville wrote of that seagoing monster of a man Captain Ahab, "All mortal greatness is but disease.

Chase's ability to adjust his manner of leadership to the needs of his men begs comparison to one of the greatest and most revered leaders of all time, Sir Ernest Shackleton.