All wars are boyish, and are fought by boys.
Interpretation
The quote suggests that wars are driven by immature impulses and perspectives, likening soldiers to boys in their motivations.
Herman Melville's quote reflects on the nature of war, implying that the conflicts and struggles shaped by human beings often stem from childish desires for power, glory, or validation. By comparing wars to the actions of boys, Melville suggests that such conflicts lack maturity and reason, highlighting the folly that can accompany human aggression and the need for a deeper understanding of our motivations in pursuing war.
In practice
In a debate about the ethical implications of war, one might quote Melville to emphasize the need for mature deliberation.
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.
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.
No matter how much knowledge and wisdom you acquire during your life, not one jot will be passed on to your children by genetic means. Each new generation starts from scratch.
Of all the animals, the boy is the most unmanageable.
The New Testament is a brutal destroyer of human illusions. If you follow Jesus and don't end up dead, it appears you have some explaining to do. The stark signifier of the human condition is one who spoke up for love and justice and was done to death for his pains. The traumatic truth of human history is a mutilated body.
All societies on the verge of death are masculine. A society can survive with only one man; no society will survive a shortage of women.
Weak character will neutralize all of the other possible good qualities a person might possess.
In fact men will fight for a superstition quite as quickly as for a living truth - often more so, since a superstition is so intangible you cannot get at it to refute it, but truth is a point of view, and so is changeable.
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