Quotes About Conflict

Or consider the mainstream religions. We are enjoined in Micah to do justly and love mercy; in Exodus we are forbidden to commit murder; in Leviticus we are commanded to love our neighbor as ourselves; and in the Gospels we are urged to love our enemies. Yet think of the rivers of blood spilled by fervent followers of the books in which these well-meaning exhortations are embedded. In

In the long run, the aggressive civilizations destroy themselves, almost always. It's their nature.

Would not a rational society spend more on understanding and preventing, than on preparing for, the next war?

Apart from the social insects, no other species has been clever enough to invent war It is an institution optimally configured to benefit the alphas

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our

Why is the half of humanity with a special sensitivity to the preciousness of life, the half untainted by testosterone poisoning, almost wholly unrepresented in defense establishments and peace negotiations worldwide? [blurb on Daniella Gioseffi's _Women on War_; quoted in Carol Lynn Pearson's _The Ghost of Eternal Polygamy_]

the more people killed in a war, the less likely it was to occur, and the longer before you could witness it, just as violent storms occur less frequently than cloudbursts. Richardson

Just before Iraq torched the Kuwaiti oil wells in January 1991

According to some estimates, almost half the scientists and high technologists on Earth are employed full- or part-time on military matters.

Tides of people will continue to ebb and flow across the planet. But the lands we run to now have already been settled. Other people, often unsympathetic to our plight, are there before us.

If the enemy can think and feel, you might hesitate to kill them. And killing is very important. Better to see them as monsters.

If we like them, they're freedom fighters, she thought. If we don't like them, they're terrorists. In the unlikely case we can't make up our minds, they're temporarily only guerrillas.

Could we possible manage the next phase of human history without first dealing with this penchant for dehumanizing the adversary?

A fire smokes the most when you start pouring water on it.

BRICK —No me gusta que me digan lo que debo hacer. ¿Ya has olvidado las condiciones que acepté para que continuáramos viviendo juntos? MARGARET —Tú no vives conmigo, Brick. Únicamente compartes la misma jaula.

I want what I'm afraid of and I'm afraid of what I want so that I'm like a storm inside that can't break loose!

We sometimes think of life as a conflict between the head and the heart, but in such a situation there is no unity of the human being, but only truces, compromises, and temporary victories of parties with divergent interests. The virtuous soul, on the contrary, blends all its parts in the act of choice.

What civilization is, is 6 billion people trying to make themselves happy by standing on each other's shoulders and kicking each other's teeth in. It's not a pleasant situation.

MarkBaynard: I figured out in the first grade that it was better to crack a joke than somebody's skull.

He caught her by the shoulders and gave her a hard little shake. Do you think you're so charming in that silly little nightdress that I can't resist tumbling you? Do you think I have no pride when it comes to you? B-b-but I— Well, you're right, he shouted. I don't! With that, his lips came down on hers

It is not enough to love you. It is not enough to want you destroyed.

I was very aware that the army was here to kill something hiding out (and I think the other black folks felt this as well) not only on the mountain, but inside my heart as well.

They were his family, but even your family could be alienated by discoveries they were not prepared for.

Just like always, men are their own worst enemies.