Quotes About Conflict

He is all pine and I am apple orchard. My apple trees will never get across And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him. He only says, Good fences make good neighbors.

I had A Lover's Quarrel With The World.

Something there is that doesn't love a wall that sends the frozen ground swell under it.

You went to meet the shell's embrace of fire On Vimy Ridge; and when you fell that day The war seemed over more for you than me, But now for me than you—the other way.

A Prince asked the dying spanish statesman, Does your Excellency forgive all your enemies? I do not have to forgive all my enemies, answered the stateman, I have had them all shot.

Nothing is stable in the realm of power, and even closest of friends can be transformed into the worst of enemies.

Our successes and failures in life can be traced to how well or how badly we deal with the inevitable conflicts that confront us in society.

In a speech Abraham Lincoln delivered at the height of the Civil War, he referred to the Southerners as fellow human beings who were in error. An elderly lady chastised him for not calling them irreconcilable enemies who must be destroyed. "Why, madam," Lincoln replied, "do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?

To have a good enemy, choose a friend: He knows where to strike. DIANF DE POITIERS, 1499-1566, MISTRESS OF HENRI II OF FRANCE

Never pick a fight with someone you're not sure you can defeat.

When the snipe and the mussel struggle, the fisherman gets the benefit. Ancient Chinese saying

The Athenians were one of the most eminently practical people in history, and they made the most practical argument they could with the Melians: When you are weaker, there is nothing to be gained by fighting a useless fight. No one comes to help the weak—by doing so they would only put themselves in jeopardy. The weak are alone and must submit. Fighting gives you nothing to gain but martyrdom, and in the process a lot of people who do not believe in your cause will die.

The root cause of all passive aggression is the human fear of direct confrontation—the emotions that a conflict can churn up and the loss of control that ensues.

If you are not in danger," says Sun-tzu, "do not fight.

The only way to break out of a negative dynamic is to confront it. Repressing your anger, avoiding the person threatening you, always looking to conciliate—these common strategies spell ruin. Avoidance of conflict becomes a habit, and you lose the taste for battle. Feeling guilty is pointless; it is not your fault you have enemies.

Years later, a Japanese visitor tried to apologize to Mao for his country's invasion of China. Mao interrupted, "Should I not thank you instead?" Without a worthy opponent, he explained, a man or group cannot grow stronger. Mao's

Understand: we can never really experience what other people are experiencing. We always remain on the outside looking in, and this is the cause of so many misunderstandings and conflicts.

So rid yourself of your nasty habit of avoiding conflict, which is in any case unnatural. You are most often nice not out of your own inner goodness but out of fear of displeasing, out of insecurity. Go beyond that fear and you suddenly have options—the freedom to create pain, then magically dissolve it. Your seductive powers will increase tenfold.

The great questions of the time will be decided, not by speeches and resolutions of majorities, but by iron and blood.

There is nothing to be gained by insulting a person unnecessarily. Swallow the impulse to offend, even if the other person seems weak. The satisfaction is meager compared to the danger that someday he or she will be in a position to hurt you.

Being more careful is not what we need; that is just a screen for our fear of conflict and of making a mistake. What we need is double the resolve—an intensification of confidence. That will serve as a counterbalance.

Leaders have always found it useful to have an enemy at their gates in times of trouble, distracting the public from their difficulties. In using your enemies to rally your troops, polarize them as far as possible: they will fight the more fiercely when they feel a little hatred. So exaggerate the differences between you and the enemy—draw the lines clearly.

O STOP being an ass, Toad!' cried the Mole despairingly.

War and the threat of war stimulate speculation upon the conditions of peace.