Quotes About Conflict

our economy is at war with many forms of life on earth, including human life.

The parties with the most to gain never show up on the battlefield.

As Upton Sinclair famously observed: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!"36

It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!"36

In December 1994, Yeltsin did what so many desperate leaders have done throughout history to hold on to power: he started a war. His national security chief, Oleg Lobov, had confided to a legislator, "We need a small, victorious war to raise the president's ratings," and the defense minister predicted that his army could defeat the forces in the breakaway republic of Chechnya in a matter of hours—a cakewalk. 59

if we chart the locations of the most intense conflict spots in the world right now—from the bloodiest battlefields in Afghanistan and Pakistan, to Libya, Yemen, Somalia, and Iraq—what becomes clear is that these also happen to be some of the hottest and driest places on earth.

Droughts and floods create all kinds of business opportunities besides a growing demand for men with guns.

just as bombs follow oil, and drones follow drought—so, now, boats follow both. Boats filled with refugees fleeing homes ravaged by war and drought in the driest parts of the planet.

The lady in the Rolls-Royce car is more damaging to morale than a fleet of Göring's bombing-planes.

The Dragon hissed under his breath with annoyance: how dare a chimaera inconvenience him, coming out of season.

He roared at me furiously for ten minutes after he finally managed to put out the sulky and determined fire, calling me a witless muttonheaded spawn of pig farmers-My father's a wood-cutter, I said- adOf axe-swinging lummocks! he snarled.

I hated her; I wanted her to burn, the way so many of the corrupted had burned, because she'd put her hold on them. But wanting cruelty felt like another wrong answer in an endless chain.

Also I hadn't lost an ounce of the passionate desire to beat him over the head with a large stick, and surely that was a sign of true love.

I grabbed back at him just as incautiously with my hand and my magic both, even as he pressed magic on me from his side as well. His breath huffed out sharply, and our workings caught on one another, magic gushing into them.

It felt like a war between two endless things, between a bottomless chasm and a running river.

I glared down. Do you want me to go? His hands tightened on my arms. He didn't look me in the face. For a moment he didn't speak. Then harshly he said, No.

No one had made her talk to me, or be in my company. I couldn't understand why she would have gone to the trouble just to be unpleasant.

I felt argument coiling in my belly.

But wanting cruelty felt like another wrong answer in an endless chain.

Why don't I just kill them all as they come in? Orion said, without the slightest doubt in his ability to kill a billion mals. Shut up, Lake, I said, having many doubts about his ability to kill a billion mals.

You intolerable lunatic," he snarled at me, and then he caught my face between his hands and kissed me.

It seems perfectly plain to me that it is war itself which must be halted, without wanting one side or another defeated in particular.

Laurence did not let anger go, but dismissed it to return later; the battle was not over.

wanting cruelty felt like another wrong answer in an endless chain.