Quotes About Conflict

Which takes more courage: to rigidly and inflexibly defend a principle, or to demonstrate a sense of perspective and willingness to compromise or walk away from a senseless argument?

On the dogmas of religion, as distinguished from moral principles, all mankind, from the beginning of the world to this day, have been quarreling, fighting, burning and torturing one another, for abstractions unintelligible to themselves and to all others, and absolutely beyond the comprehension of the human mind.

Never into dispute or argument with another. I never yet saw an instance of one of two disputants convincing the other by argument. I have seen many on their getting warm, becoming rude and shooting one another.

But this momentous question [the Missouri Compromise], like a firebell in the night awakened and filled me with terror. I considered it the knell of the Union.

The most successful war seldom pays for its losses.

I abhor war and view it as the greatest scourge of mankind.

I have seen enough of one war never to wish to see another.

[On slavery:] We have the wolf by the ear, and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go. Justice is in one scale, and self-preservation in the other.

It is our duty still to endeavor to avoid war but if it shall actually take place, no matter by whom brought on, we must defend ourselves. If our house be on fire, without inquiring whether it was fired from within or without, we must try to extinguish it.

We must therefore… hold them [the British] as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends.

Whensoever hostile aggressions… require a resort to war, we must meet our duty and convince the world that we are just friends and brave enemies.

I recoil with horror at the ferociousness of man. Will nations never devise a more rational umpire of differences than force? Are there no means of coercing injustice more gratifying to our nature than a waste of the blood of thousands and of the labor of millions of our fellow creatures?

Never enter into dispute or argument with another. I never yet saw an instance of one of two disputants convincing the other by argument. I have seen many on their getting warm, becoming rude and shooting one another.

After watching what has happened over the past fifty years in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan, and seeing the money that is to be made from such ventures, I wonder if the adage should have a corollary: 'Those who understand the lessons of history are only too happy to repeat them.

Dans notre monde bien protégé et si moderne, il n'y a plus de fautifs, plus de fautes non plus. Des incursions ruineuses comme celles de Cuba, du Vietnam, de l'Irak et de l'Afghanistan ne sont plus le fait d'un seul responsable. Par un tour de passe-passe bien pensé, notre propagande donne à croire que les gens et les pays que nous attaquons ont provoqué notre agression.

Real stand off," Florence reported over coffee. "Almost had a hockey game on our hands.

While the hardware of civilization - iron pots, blankets, guns - was welcomed by Native people, the software of Protestantism and Catholicism - original sin, universal damnation, atonement, and subligation - was not, and Europeans were perplexed, offended, and incensed that Native peoples had the temerity to take their goods and return their gods.

I'd rather face a thousand fights, Ferdia, than this fight with you.

Let dangers go; thy war shall be with me, But such a war, as breaks no bonds of peace. Speak thou fair words, I'll cross them with fair words; Send thou sweet looks, I'll meet them with sweet looks; Write loving lines, I'll answer loving lines; Give me a kiss, I'll countercheck thy kiss. Be this our warring peace, or peaceful war.

Fear shall force what friendship cannot win.

I am never better than when I am mad: then methinks I am a brave fellow; then I do wonders: but reason abuseth me, and there's the torment, there's the hell.

Where words prevail not, violence prevails; But gold doth more than either of them both.

Wars are begun by frightened men.

Our common preference as a species is for difference rather than unity. (Vive la différence. Vive la guerre.) Nobody designed us to be this way—it just happens to be how we blundered into the nightmare of being. Life preys on life, per Schopenhauer