My dear creature, I have done with all debate. But you know as well as I, patriotism is a word; and one that generally comes to mean either MY COUNTRY, RIGHT OR WRONG, which is infamous, or MY COUNTRY IS ALWAYS RIGHT, which is imbecile.
Patrick O'BrianThere is a systematic flocci-nauci-nihili-pilification of all other aspects of existence that angers me.
Patrick O'BrianFor a moment Jack felt the strongest inclination to snatch up his little gilt chair and beat the white-faced man down with it.
Patrick O'BrianGo and see whether the Doctor is about,โ said Jack, โand if he is, ask him to look in, when he has a moment.โ Which he is in the fish-market, turning over some old-fashioned lobsters. No. I tell a lie. That is him, falling down the companion-way and cursing in foreign.
Patrick O'BrianWhy there you are, Stephen,' cried Jack. 'You are come home, I find.' That is true,' said Stephen with an affectionate look: he prized statements of this kind in Jack.
Patrick O'BrianAuthority is a solvent of humanity: look at any husband, any father of a family,and note the absorption of the person by the persona, the individual by the role. Then multiply the family, and the authority, by some hundreds and see the effect upon a sea-captain, to say nothing of an absolute monarch.Surely man in general is born to be oppressed or solitary, if he is to be fully human; unless it so happens that he is immune to the poison.
Patrick O'Brian