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.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the interconnectedness of humanity and the global consequences of national actions.
Herman Melville's quote highlights the profound interconnectedness of humanity, suggesting that the actions taken by one nation, particularly in conflict, reverberate across the entire globe. It underscores the idea that nations are not isolated entities, but rather part of a larger community where the suffering or sacrifice of a single nation affects all of humanity, thus appealing to a collective responsibility towards each other.
In practice
This quote could be used in a speech about global responsibility.
A good laugh is a mighty good thing, and rather too scarce a good thing; the more's the pity. So, if any one man, in his own proper person, afford stuff for a good joke to anybody, let him not be backward, but let him cheerfully allow himself to spend and be spent in that way. And the man that has anything bountifully laughable about him, be sure there is more in that man than you perhaps think for.
The Marquesan girls dance all over; not only do their feet dance, but their arms, hands, fingers, ay, their very eyes seem to dance in their heads.
Dream tonight of peacock tails, Diamond fields and spouter whales. Ills are many, blessing few, But dreams tonight will shelter you.
Why did the old Persians hold the sea holy? Why did the Greeks give it a separate deity, and own brother Jove? Surely all this is not without meaning. And still deeper the meaning of that story of Narcissus, who because he could not grasp the tormenting mild image he saw in the fountain, plunged into it and was drowned. But that same image, we ourselves see in all rivers and oceans. It is the image of the ungraspable phantom of life; and this is the key to it all.
If some books are deemed most baneful and their sale forbid, how then with deadlier facts, not dreams of doting men? Those whom books will hurt will not be proof against events. Events, not books should be forbid.
Dollars damn me; and the malicious Devil is forever grinning in upon me, holding the door ajar. ... What I feel most moved to write, that is banned - it will not pay. Yet, altogether, write the other way I cannot. So the product is a final hash, and all my books are botches.
Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.
What he could bear in the waking world he could not by night and he sat awake for fear the dream would return.
To do all that one is able to do, is to be a man; to do all that one would like to do, is to be a god.
In all of us there is a hunger, marrow-deep, to know our heritage, to know who we are and where we came from.
It is quite rare for God to provide a great man at the necessary moment to carry out some great deep, which is why when this unusual combination of circumstance does occur, history at once records the name of the chosen one and recommends him to the admiration of posterity.
Now see that noble and most sovereign reason, Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh.
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