Quotes About Conflict

Today it's "us versus them" in America. Politics is little more than blood sport. As a result, our willingness to believe the worst about everyone outside our own bubble is growing, and our ability to solve problems and seize opportunities is shrinking.

Participation in our democracy seems to be driven by the instant-gratification worlds of Twitter, Snapchat, Facebook, and the twenty-four-hour news cycle. We're using modern technology to revert to primitive kinds of human relations. The media knows what sells—conflict and division. It's also quick and easy. All too often anger works better than answers; resentment better than reason; emotion trumps evidence.

My questioner is not the least bit deterred by the insults I've hurled. He is undoubtedly encouraged by the fact that his questions have now firmly found their place under my skin. He is looking at his notes again, at his flowchart of questions and follow-ups, while I try to calm myself.

Our democracy cannot survive its current downward drift into tribalism, extremism, and seething resentment. Today it's "us versus them" in America. Politics is little more than blood sport. As a result, our willingness to believe the worst about everyone outside our own bubble is growing, and our ability to solve problems and seize opportunities is shrinking.

truth telling is more important than peace keeping.

in a gunfight there is no second place winner

Bloodless revolutions are rare.

Do not fuck with gun nuts because they are nuts about their guns.

Since 1945, when Jesus granted America air superiority, we have bombed Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Lebanon, Granada, Panama, Iraq, Serbia, Somalia, Bosnia, The Sudan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya and Yemen. And Yemen only because the tenth one was free. How did we inherit this moral obligation of bringing justice to the world via death from above? Are we Zeus? It doesn't make any sense. Our schools are crumbling and we wanna teach everyone else a lesson.

When I hear from people that religion doesn't hurt anything, I say, really? Well besides wars, the Crusades, the Inquisitions, 9-11, ethnic cleansing, the suppression of women, the suppression of homosexuals, fatwas, honor killings, suicide bombings, arranged marriages to minors, human sacrifice, burning witches, and systematic sex with children, I have a few little quibbles. And I forgot blowing up girl schools in Afghanistan

Forget the Syria debate; we need a debate on why we are always debating on whether to bomb someone. Because we're starting to look not so much like the world's police men but more like George Zimmerman. Itching to use force and then pretending it's because we had no choice.

How come we play war and not peace? Too few role models.

A little rudeness and disrespect can elevate a meaningless interaction to a battle of wills and add drama to an otherwise dull day.

I'm a 21st-century kid trapped in a 19th-century family.

it's a tough thing having to step aside for a friend, when your heart's breaking and your nether parts are still tangled up in their base desires.

Nothing like a good war to forget a night of exquisite soul-killing humiliation.

As the world continues to find new ways to tear itself apart, humans still love, hate, feel rejected and yarn to be close to someone.

It's easy to win forgiveness for being wrong; being right is what gets you into real trouble.

Having a Code of Honor doesn't mean that everyone on the team is happy 100 percent of the time. Sometimes things get messy.

Inside you, there's a champion and a loser. There's an angel and a devil. There's a hero and a villain. The question is, which one is going to win today?

Can anything be stupider than that a man has the right to kill me because he lives on the other side of a river and his ruler has a quarrel with mine, though I have not quarrelled with him?

They prefer death to peace, others prefer death to war. Any opinion can be preferred to life, which it seems so natural to love dearly.

All men naturally hate each other. We have used concupiscence as best we can to make it serve the common good, but this is mere sham and a false image of charity, for essentially it is just hate.

Civil war in man between reason and passions. If there were only reason without passions. If there were only passions without reason. But since he has both he cannot be free from war, for he can only be at peace with the one if he is at war with the other.