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Mr. Lincoln was telling his countrymen that the achieved West had given the United States something that no people had ever had before, an internal, domestic empire, and he was telling them that Yesterday must not be permitted to Balkanize it.

— Bernard DeVoto The Year of Decision 1846 (1943)

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More quotes by Bernard DeVoto

Man is a noisome bacillus whom Our Heavenly Father created because he was disappointed in the monkey.

Don't have much to do with people who drink sherry at any time except with soup; there's something wrong with them.

Pessimism is only the name that men of weak nerves give to wisdom.

The dawn of knowledge is usually the false dawn.

The Course of Empire (1952)

In the South, a lady’s opinions could not be more important than a drawing-room charade, an accompaniment to sillabubs and cobbler.

Mark Twain's America (1932)

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Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Bernard DeVoto (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.