Quotes About Conflict

Negotiation in the classic diplomatic sense assumes parties more anxious to agree than to disagree.

If we open a quarrel between the past and the present, we shall find we have lost the future.

When thieves fall out, honest men come by their own.

For the maintenance of peace, nations should avoid the pin-pricks which forerun cannon-shots.

Never trouble trouble till trouble troubles you.

To take arms against a sea of troubles.

Men are the only animals that devote themselves, day in and day out, to making one another unhappy.

Violence is the quest for identity. When identity disappears with technological innovation, violence is the natural recourse.

Violence is essentially wordless, and it can begin only where thought and rational communication have broken down.

You know what I think about violence. For me it is profoundly moral -more moral than compromises and transactions.

Today violence is the rhetoric of the period.

A tragic situation exists precisely when virtue does not triumph but when it is still felt that man is nobler than the forces which destroy him.

I have never understood disliking for war. It panders to instincts already catered for within the scope of any respectable domestic establishment.

War is a series of catastrophes which result in victory.

War is the national industry of Prussia.

If they want peace, nations should avoid the pinpricks that precede cannon shots.

The object of war is to survive it.

We don't want to fight, but by jingo if we do, We've got the ships, we've got the men, we've got the money too. We've fought the Bear before and while we're Britons true, The Russians shall not have Constantinople.

A wise man always throws himself on the side of his assailants. It is more his interests than it is theirs to find his weak point.

A very great part of the mischiefs that vex this world arises from words.

The words of his mouth were smoother than butter, but war was in his heart; his words were softer than oil, yet were they drawn swords.

His words were softer than oil, yet they were drawn swords.

There are three ways of dealing with difference: domination, compromise, and integration. By domination only one side gets what it wants; by compromise neither side gets what it wants; by integration we find a way by which both sides may get what they wish.

The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheaply, we esteem too lightly; 'tis dearness only that gives everything its value.