Quotes About Conflict

Bill's father would have remembered the Civil War, and his great-great-grandfather actually fought in the American Revolution.

Bush and bin Laden are really on the same side: the side of faith and violence against the side of reason and discussion. Both have implacable faith that they are right and the other is evil. Each believes that when he dies he is going to heaven. Each believes that if he could kill the other, his path to paradise in the next world would be even swifter. The delusional "next world" is welcome to both of them. This world would be a much better place without either of them.

the furious firepower of the 16 Panzer Division was turned on to our positions. … There was a shout 'Tanks in front!

Serious disputes are seldom resolved without a genuine change in the parties' thinking. And a false consensus may be more productive of conflict than an honest disagreement.

Just as police and fire sirens reminded New Yorkers they were home, the sound of car bombs reminded me I was in Baghdad, which had become home for me. I was like a battered wife who can't leave the man abusing her. I had moved into stage four and assumed, as a matter of math, that I was going to die in Baghdad. But still I wanted to stay.

I may have been in stage four, but I wasn't completely crazy. At least eighty-six journalists had been killed in Iraq, more than in any other conflict since World War II, and another thirty-eight had been taken hostage. More would die in the years to come. I knew I had to limit my movements and take special care when I did go out.

I could scarcely believe that my new home was engulfed by war before I even had time to find an apartment. It seemed that war followed me everywhere I went.

I kept seeing turning points. First the uprising. Then the creation of the Free Syrian Army, the FSA. Now a big assassination bombing in the heart of Assad's government. But the turn never came. It just got worse and worse.

Resolution, like responsibility, is a product of ownership, and kids can't resolve a conflict until they figure out how they contributed to it.

One man's piety is often another man's poison.

For the world did not change, this violence had always existed and would never be eradicated, men would die under the boot and fists and horror of other men until the end of time, and all human history was a history of violence.

So there you have it: two things & I can't bring them together & they are wrenching me apart. These two feelings, this knowledge of a world so awful, this sense of a life so extraordinary—how am I to resolve them?

America beats on you so hard the whole time. You are constantly being pummeled by other people's rights and their sense of patriotism.

After some arm-twisting from the French, the United States, notionally opposed to colonialism, not only acquiesced in the French claim to Vietnam but transported thousands of French soldiers there by sea.

What is passing for religion in most of the Earth now is its opposite: xenophobia and road rage.

I have just come from a couple of raids, where we had a very lively time, and some of them had to pull their guns. I found it necessary to punch a few sports myself.

One person was excommunicated for buying a kosher chicken from an Ashkenazi butcher rather than a Sephardic one.

The problem with this argument is that it can be hard to find a true expert who does not have a conflict of interest. It is illogical to think that someone who is not sophisticated enough to choose a good portfolio for her retirement saving will somehow be sophisticated about searching for a financial advisor, mortgage broker, or real estate agent.

The clash of ideas is not weakness.Truth reaches its place when tussling with error.

The fundamentalist mind...is essentially Manichean; it looks upon the world as an arena for conflict between absolute good and absolute evil, and accordingly it scorns compromises (who would compromise with Satan?) and can tolerate no ambiguities.

United Nations peacekeepers are going all over the world spreading AIDS even while they're trying to bring peace. What a supreme irony.

A peace deal requires agreements, and you don't make agreements with your friends, you make agreements with your enemies.

The two Presidents sat opposite each other, while Christopher and I sat side by side on a couch between them; Hill and Galbraith also participated. Their greeting was far warmer than their performance for the press; Milosevic jovially hailed Tudjman as "Franjo." Tudjman called Milosevic "Slobo.

Truth is rarely simple and seldom obvious, which is why mature institutions recognise the importance of conflict and disagreement. Christianity was born in conflict, and it has been characterised by conflict ever since. The Church's obsession with heresy is witness to this fact.