Authors:
  • Standing navies, as well as standing armies, serve to keep alive the spirit of war even in the meek heart of peace. In its very embers and smoulderings, they nourish that fatal fire, and half-pay officers, as the priests of Mars, yet guard the temple, though no god be there.

    Herman Melville (1850). “White-jacket; Or, The World in the Man-of-war”, p.247