"Don't judge the future of a person based on his present conditions, becausetime has the power to change black coal to shiny diamond."

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Having therefore no foreign establishments, either colonial or military, the ships of war of the United States, in war, will be like land birds, unable to fly far from their own shores. To provide resting places for them, where they can coal and repair, would be one of the first duties of a government proposing to itself the development of the power of the nation at sea.

— Alfred Thayer Mahan