“Not surprisingly, South Carolina acted first. “There is nothing in all the dark caves of human passion so cruel and deadly as the hatred the South Carolinians profess for the Yankees.” wrote the correspondent of the London Times from Charleston. The enmity of Greek for Turk was child’s play “compared to the animosity evinced by the ‘gentry’ of South Carolina for the ‘rabble of the North.’ … The State of South Carolina was,’ I am”
― James M. McPherson, quote from Battle Cry of Freedom
“His captors asked why he, a nonslaveholder, was fighting to uphold slavery. He replied: “I’m fighting because you’re down here.”7”
― James M. McPherson, quote from Battle Cry of Freedom
“More than twice as many Americans lost their lives in one day at Sharpsburg as fell in combat in the War of 1812, the Mexican War, and the Spanish-American war combined.”
― James M. McPherson, quote from Battle Cry of Freedom
“The Civil War was pre-eminently a political war, a war of peoples rather than of professional armies.”
― James M. McPherson, quote from Battle Cry of Freedom
“This was a transformation from what the late Isaiah Berlin described as “Negative Liberty” to “Positive Liberty.”4 The idea of negative liberty is perhaps more familiar. It can be defined as the absence of restraint, a freedom from interference by outside authority with individual thought or behavior. A law requiring motorcyclists to wear a helmet would be, under this definition, to prevent them from enjoying the freedom to go bareheaded if they wish. Negative liberty, therefore, can be described as freedom from. Positive liberty can best be understood as freedom to . It is not necessarily incompatible with negative liberty, but has a different focus or emphasis. Freedom of the press is generally viewed as a negative liberty—freedom from interference with what a writer writes or a reader reads. But an illiterate person suffers from a denial of positive liberty; he is unable to enjoy the freedom to write or read whatever he chooses, not because some authority prevents him from doings so but because he cannot read or write anything. He suffers not the absence of a negative liberty—freedom from—but of a positive liberty—freedom to read and write. The remedy lies not in removal of restraint but in achievement of the capacity to read and write.”
― James M. McPherson, quote from Battle Cry of Freedom
“The casualties at Antietam numbered four times the total suffered by American soldiers at the Normandy beaches on June 6, 1944. More than twice as many Americans lost their lives in one day at Sharpsburg as fell in combat in the War of 1812, the Mexican War, and the Spanish-American War combined.”
― James M. McPherson, quote from Battle Cry of Freedom
“Lincoln too considered secession the “essence of anarchy.” He branded state sovereignty a “sophism.” “The Union is older than any of the States,” Lincoln asserted, “and, in fact, it created them as States.” The Declaration of Independence transformed the “United Colonies” into the United States; without this union then, there would never have been any “free and independent States.”
― James M. McPherson, quote from Battle Cry of Freedom
“How is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes?”
― James M. McPherson, quote from Battle Cry of Freedom
“By the latter part of 1861 the War Department had taken over from the states the responsibility for feeding, clothing, and arming Union soldiers. But this process was marred by inefficiency, profiteering, and corruption. To fill contracts for hundreds of thousands of uniforms, textile manufacturers compressed the fibers of recycled woolen goods into a material called “shoddy.” This noun soon became an adjective to describe uniforms that ripped after a few weeks of wear, shoes that fell apart, blankets that disintegrated, and poor workmanship in general on items necessary to equip an army of half a million men and to create its support services within a few short months.”
― James M. McPherson, quote from Battle Cry of Freedom
“In cities and factories, the vices of our nature are more fully displayed,” declared James Hammond of South Carolina in 1829, while rural life “promotes a generous hospitality, a high and perfect courtesy, a lofty spirit of independence . . . and all the nobler virtues and heroic traits.”
― James M. McPherson, quote from Battle Cry of Freedom
“The truth is, when bullets are whacking against tree-trunks and solid shot are cracking skulls like egg-shells, the consuming passion in the breast of the average man is to get out of the way. Between the physical fear of going forward and the moral fear of turning back, there is a predicament of exceptional awkwardness.”
― James M. McPherson, quote from Battle Cry of Freedom
“Although per capita income doubled during the half-century, not all sectors of society shared equally in this abundance. While both rich and poor enjoyed rising incomes, their inequality of wealth widened significantly. As the population began to move from farm to city, farmers increasingly specialized in the production of crops for the market rather than for home consumption. The manufacture of cloth, clothing, leather goods, tools, and other products shifted from home to shop and from shop to factory. In the process many women experienced a change in roles from producers to consumers with a consequent transition in status. Some craftsmen suffered debasement of their skills as the division of labor and power-driven machinery eroded the traditional handicraft methods of production and transformed them from self-employed artisans to wage laborers. The resulting potential for class conflict threatened the social fabric of this brave new republic.”
― James M. McPherson, quote from Battle Cry of Freedom
“It began to appear that something larger than a lady’s thimble might be needed to hold the blood shed in this war.”
― James M. McPherson, quote from Battle Cry of Freedom
James M. McPherson
Born place: in Valley City, North Dakota, The United States
Born date October 11, 1936
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“It is one of the things she has come to love about America, the abundance of unreasonable hope.”
― Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, quote from The Thing Around Your Neck
“When planning misfortune for your friends, " he said, "be careful because it will come back to haunt you. You must always wish others well.”
― William Kamkwamba, quote from The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind: Creating Currents of Electricity and Hope
“THE BRIDGE TO TOTAL FREEDOM is a journey that goes on and on (although confoundingly, in the Scientology metaphor, one moves “higher and higher”—up the Bridge rather than across it).”
― Lawrence Wright, quote from Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief
“Being the object of a woman-hunt, exiled to Simpson, being terrorized by school kids trick-or-treating, lusting after an aroused non-talker with superb thighs. It was all too much.”
― Lisa Marie Rice, quote from Woman on the Run
“The doorbell rang, making me and Roland jump. Nikolas opened the door to admit Chris whose good-natured smile did not falter even when he saw our grim faces. Then he saw Remy. I didn’t think I had ever seen someone’s eyes go that round before. Roland shoved a glass of Nate’s whiskey into Chris’s hand while Nikolas brought him up to speed on all he had missed.”
― Karen Lynch, quote from Relentless
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The Silent GirlBookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
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