Questions About John Brown

[My Name Is Kate]

All I know about John Brown are a few tidbits that I read in the online wikipedia. Here is a John Brown quote that caught my attention:

Brown founded the League of Gileadites with these words, "Nothing so charmes the American people as personal bravery. [Blacks] would have ten times the number [of whites friends than] they now have were they but half as much in earnest to secure their dearest rights as they are to ape the follies and extravagances of their white neighbors, and to indulge in idle show, in ease, and in luxury."

Is there a note of contempt or pity in that quote, or is it just frustration?

The wikipedia (probably not the best source of information) also says that John Brown saw himself as "an instrument of God's wrath" in the fight against slavery. That sounds a bit self-serving, if not actually megalomaniacal.

If it hadn't been for John Brown, might the Civil War possibly have been avoided, or at least delayed, and maybe not as costly?

Did John Brown get what he deserved?

What triggered his obsession with anti-slavery?