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Nathaniel Philbrick Quote

To be in the presence of a great leader is to know a blighted soul who has managed to make the darkness work for him. Ishmael says it best: For all men tragically great are made so through a certain morbidness. Be sure of this, O young ambition, all mortal greatness is but a disease. In chapter 36, The Quarter-Deck, Melville show us how susceptible we ordinary people are to the seductive power of a great and demented man.

Nathaniel Philbrick

To be in the presence of a great leader is to know a blighted soul who has managed to make the darkness work for him. Ishmael says it best: For all men tragically great are made so through a certain morbidness. Be sure of this, O young ambition, all mortal greatness is but a disease. In chapter 36, The Quarter-Deck, Melville show us how susceptible we ordinary people are to the seductive power of a great and demented man.

Tags: moby dick, power

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About Nathaniel Philbrick

Nathaniel Philbrick (born June 11, 1956) is an American author of history, winner of the National Book Award, and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. His maritime history, In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex, is based on what inspired Herman Melville to author Moby-Dick, won the 2000 National Book Award for Nonfiction and was adapted as a film in 2015.