Quotes About Conflict

We know, better than most, perhaps, that soldiers are charged with protecting peace and life itself. The balance to that is that we sometimes must take life to stay an enemy who would do greater harm. For this, we are remembered, not for the lives we try to preserve.

People need an enemy to feel a sense of purpose. It's easy to lead people when they have a sense of purpose. Sense of purpose is more important by far than the truth. In fact, truth has no bearing in this.

The Crusaders had not only taken into themselves the notion that they would become better people through violence; they also projected onto the victims of their violence their own inner demons. This is probably the most obvious and long-lasting heritage of the crusade. We still do it.

Chaos is found in greatest abundance wherever order is being sought. It always defeats order, because it is better organized.

Inside every sane person there's a madman struggling to get out, said the shopkeeper. That's what I've always thought. No one goes mad quicker than a totally sane person.

I believe you find life such a problem because you think there are good people and bad people. You're wrong, of course. There are, always and only, the bad people, but some of them are on opposite sides.

Your average witch is not, by nature, a social animal as far as other witches are concerned. There's a conflict of dominant personalities. There's a group of ringleaders without a ring. There's the basic unwritten rule of witchcraft, which is 'Don't do what you will, do what I say.' The natural size of a coven is one. Witches only get together when they can't avoid it.

A weapon you held and didn't know how to use belonged to your enemy.

It is always useful to face an enemy who is prepared to die for his country, he read. This means that both you and he have exactly the same aim in mind.

Peace?' said Vetinari. 'Ah, yes, defined as period of time to allow for preparation for the next war.

Most of the great triumphs and tragedies of history are caused not by people being fundamentally good or fundamentally evil, but by people being fundamentally people.

You just put that sword away, sir, please, said the voice of Lance-Constable Vimes. You will not shoot me, you young idiot. That would be murder, said the captain calmly. Not where I'm aiming, sir.

They called themselves the Munrungs. It meant The People, or The True Human Beings. It's what most people call themselves, to begin with. And then one day the tribe meets some other People or, if it's not been a good day, The Enemy. If only they'd think up a name like Some More True Human Beings, it'd save a lot of trouble later on

It is a long-cherished tradition among a certain type of military thinker that huge casualties are the main thing. If they are on the other side then this is a valuable bonus.

He thought about how it might be to be, say, a fox confronted with an angry sheep. A sheep moreover, that could afford to employ wolves.

War, Nobby. Huh! What is it good for? he said. Dunno, Sarge. Freeing slaves, maybe? Absol—well, okay. Defending yourself against a totalitarian aggressor? All right, I'll grant you that, but— Saving civilization from a horde of— It doesn't do any good in the long run is what I'm saying, Nobby, if you'd listen for five seconds together, said Fred Colon sharply. Yeah, but in the long run, what does, Sarge?

I don't want to hurt you, Mistress Weatherwax, said Mrs Gogol. That's good, said Granny. I don't want you to hurt me either.

I'm not a natural killer ! See this? See what it says? I'm supposed to keep the peace, I am! If I kill people to do it, I'm reading the wrong manual!

I'm not bloody well going to have it, understand? Vimes shouted, shaking the ape back and forth. Oook, the Librarian pointed out, patiently. What? Oh. Sorry. Vimes lowered the ape, who wisely didn't make an issue out of it because a man angry enough to lift 300 pounds of orangutan without noticing is a man with too much on his mind.

Sometimes it's like watching a wasp land on a stinging nettle: someone's going to get stung and you don't care.

That's the trouble about the good guys and the bad guys! They're all guys!

He wanted to go home. He wanted it so much that he trembled at the thought. But if the price of that was selling good men to the night, if the price was filling those graves, if the price was not fighting with every trick he knew…then it was too high.

Men marched away, Vimes. And men marched back. How glorious the battles would have been that they never had to fight!

Mr. Tulip lived his life on that thin line most people occupy just before they haul off and hit someone repeatedly with a wrench.