On the record
Mariners might as well blame you for the swing and toss of their craft when tides troop in or march out of your harbor, as us, for heaving to that tide which God swells under us.
Said by
Henry Ward Beecher
Source
gutenberg.orgHenry Ward Beecher: “Mariners might as well blame you for the swing and toss of their craft when tides troop in or march out of your harbor…”
Editor's note · Context
This metaphor illustrates the futility of blaming individuals for the larger forces at play in society, akin to mariners blaming the tides.
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More from Henry Ward Beecher
And aroused by that spirit, there shall spring up the yet unaroused hosts of men that have not bowed the knee to Baal--and we will war it to the knife, and knife to the hilt.
Having once given forth this spirit of liberty, now fading out of our Southern States, the North should again come forth and refill the poisoned veins that have been drinking the hemlock of Despotism with the new blood of Liberty!
If the North gives to the Nation her radical principles of human rights and democratic Governments, there will be the peace of an immeasurable prosperity.
Northern ideas must become American, or Southern ideas must become American, before there will be peace.