Quotes About Conflict

We bomb homes, and these people have families -- and the U.S. refuses to apologize for these civilian deaths. The absence of concern makes their actions almost equal to a deliberate targeting of civilians.

What our leaders and pundits never let slip is that the terrorists - whatever else they might be - might also be rational human beings; which is to say that in their own minds they have a rational justification for their actions.

The United States is not actually against terrorism per se, only those terrorists who are not allies of the empire.

Every one of the many wars the United States has engaged in since the end of World War II has been presented to the American people, explicitly or implicitly, as a war of necessity, not a war of choice; a war urgently needed to protect American citizens, American allies, vital American 'interests,' freedom and/or democracy, or kill dangerous anti-American terrorists and various other bad guys.

The United States is an equal-opportunity bomber. The only qualifications for a country to become a target are: (a) it poses an obstacle – could be anything – to a particular desire of the American Empire; (b) it is virtually defenseless against aerial attack; (c) it does not possess nuclear weapons.

Where he (Alexander) came the inhabitants either accepted him with roses and wine, or fought and were beaten. He preferred the latter.

He fought with Augustus and Peter, not with Russia or Poland. He aimed at full apologies, not conquests.

Such conflicts are reminders of the Fourth Law of Organizational Development: whenever there is a painful, troubled time in the organization, a developmental transition is probably going on.

Given the ambiguities of the neutral zone, it is easy for people to become polarized: some want to rush forward and others want to go back to the old ways.

you enter a state of affairs in which neither the old ways nor the new ways work satisfactorily. People are caught between the demands of conflicting systems and end up immobilized

They were the Land people. We were the sea people.

belief, expressed in such diverse and fascinating ways, in the One who had placed them there: the Christians, the Jews, the Mohammedans, and a hundred offshoots of each, all raising their voices in praise to Him—often, too, raising their swords against one another in a manner, a zeal of hatred, which must have perplexed Him, as if one could ever chop off the head of one of His children and ascribe the act to His direct orders.

She loved Harry and so, when he disappeared, when he withdrew into vagueness and alcohol, she had despised him passionately.

This is the contrary of the Darwin that we mainly receive from the Darwinists. The survival of the fittest is supposed to represent the conflict of sovereign individuals, among which the strongest wins and so gets to go on to the next round of the conflict. But in Darwin's day--at least when he was writing 'The Voyage of the Beagle'--'fittest' did not mean strongest. It meant the one that fit best into the network of mutual need

Out of Ireland have we come, great hatred, little room, maimed us at the start. I carry from my mother's womb a fanatic heart.

Turning and turning in the widening gyreThe falcon cannot hear the falconer;Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhereThe ceremony of innocence is drowned;The best lack all conviction, while the worstAre full of passionate intensity.

An intellectual hate is the worst.

Out of Ireland have we come. Great hatred, little room, Maimed us at the start. I carry from my mother's womb A fanatic heart.

An intellectual hatred is the worst.

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.

There is a war between the living and the dead, and the Irish stories keep harping upon it. ("The Queen And The Fool")

Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Out of the quarrel with others we make rhetoric; out of the quarrel with ourselves we make poetry.

Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.