But sea power has never led to despotism. The nations that have enjoyed sea power even for a brief period-Athens, Scandinavia, the Netherlands, England, the United States-are those that have preserved freedom for themselves and have given it to others. Of the despotism to which unrestrained military power leads we have plenty of examples from Alexander to Mao.
Interpretation
Sea power contributes to freedom rather than tyranny.
This quote by Samuel Eliot Morison emphasizes the idea that nations with strong naval capabilities are more likely to uphold and spread liberty, contrasting this with the oppressive nature of unchecked military power throughout history. Morison highlights examples of nations like Athens and England that have leveraged their sea power to promote freedom, suggesting that maritime strength encourages democratic values as opposed to despotism, which often arises from land-based military dominance.
In practice
In a speech discussing the importance of naval forces in preserving democracy.
The freedmen were not really free in 1865, nor are most of their descendants really free in 1965. Slavery was but one aspect of a race and color problem that is still far from solution here, or anywhere. In America particularly, the grapes of wrath have not yet yielded all their bitter vintage.
So I have cultivated the vast garden of human experience which is history, without troubling myself overmuch about laws, essential first causes, or how it is all coming out.
Intellectual honesty is the quality that the public in free countries always has expected of historians; much more than that it does not expect, nor often get.
No big modern war has been won without preponderant sea power; and, conversely, very few rebellions of maritime provinces have succeeded without acquiring sea power.
Dream dreams and write them aye, but live them first.
A tough but nervous, tenacious but restless race [the Yankees]; materially ambitious, yet prone to introspection, and subject to waves of religious emotion. . . . A race whose typical member is eternally torn between a passion for righteousness and a desire to get on in the world.
I have a hatred of habit and routine. And what dogs love is just that. They like regular everything, and I don't have regular anything. I have a timetable, but no routine.
Why has time disappeared in our culture? How is it that after decades of inventions and new technologies devoted to saving time and labor, the result is that there is no time left? We are a time-poor society; we are temporally impoverished. And there is no issue, no aspect of human life, that exceeds this in importance. The destruction of time is literally the destruction of life.
The first thing you must do is forget that I'm Black. Second, you must never forget that I'm Black.
To make an omelette, you need not only those broken eggs but someone 'oppressed' to beat them: every revolutionist is presumed to understand that, and also every woman, which either does or does not make 51 percent of the population of the United States a potentially revolutionary class.
The highwayman takes solely upon himself the responsibility, danger, and crime of his own act. He does not pretend that he has any rightful claim to your money, or that he intends to use it for your own benefit ... Furthermore, having taken your money, he leaves you, as you wish him to do ... He does not keep "protecting" you by commanding you to bow down and serve him; by requiring you to do this, and forbidding you to do that.
The only secure knowledge is that I exist.
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