Quotes About Conflict

Every man is a mob, a chain gang of idiots.

Music has also been used in time of war. Its purpose was to rally the troops and to plant fear into the minds and hearts of the enemy. This happens once again through the moving of man's emotions.

Tone is the hardest part of saying no.

In a conflict of opinion between Einstein and a fool, one wishes for Einstein to prevail. And in a conflict between Einstein and thousand fools or a million, one wishes all the more for Einstein to prevail.

An Ivy League teacher told me, "I've found that if students have an opportunity to jump on someone, they usually take it.

A basic principle of science—of liberal social life—is that we kill our hypotheses rather than each other .

Intergroup animosity need not be about anything,

if I did something like that, I'd have to tell them. I don't want to have to show up and say, 'Yeah, I've had a fight with my wife and slept at the Holiday Inn.

Richard, you know I love my family, but that's no reason why I should have to acknowledge them in broad daylight.

The people of Israel are entitled, as is any other nation, to live in peace and safety.

The alternative to morality is violence. Violence is the attempt to satisfy my desires at the cost of yours.

Wrangham estimated that around thirty per cent of adult male chimpanzees had died as the result of violence by another member of their own species.

This is the question of questions for biblical faith. Paganism then, like secularism now, had no such doubt. Why should anyone expect justice in the world? The gods fought. They were indifferent to mankind. The universe was not moral. It was an arena of conflict. The strong win, the weak suffer, and the wise keep far from the fray. If there is no God or (what amounts to the same thing) many gods, there is no reason to expect justice. The question does not arise.

The degree of unity aspired to in the total society is incompatible with human freedom and the right to disagree. Politics should be the mediation, not the suppression, of conflict.

I hated myself for going, why couldn't I be the kind of person who stays?

The enemy must in some way be dehumanized, degraded to less than full human status. Collectively, the population [and soldiers] of the other country must become "gooks," "Nips," "Japs," "Krauts," or "Huns." One must first hide from the full humanity of the opponent before [one] is able to kill him. -- Rev William Mahedy

Combat with these weapons is face to face, hand to hand, personal. When face-to-face combatants share a common tongue, complex speech occurs between them. The American Civil War was the last time in our own history when both sides spoke the same language.

I have emphasized the religious roots of dishonoring the enemy and its toxic psychological results. However, any ideology that debases the enemy endangers the lives of soldiers while they fight.

To return to my blunder in group therapy, a veteran whose voice is often heard in this book turned black with anger and, glaring at me, said, "I won my war. It's you who fucking lost!" He got up and left the room to remove himself from the opportunity to physically hurt me. Toward the end of the group session he returned and said, "What we lost in Vietnam was some good fucking kids !

Achilles roars at his mother: "...Do not attempt to keep me from the fight, though you love me; you cannot make me listen.

According to Colonel David Hackworth, 15 to 20 percent of American deaths in Vietnam were due to "friendly fire.

Gang or individual rapes by soldiers -- whether or not these end in the woman's murder -- have never been counted as civilian war casualties. Psychological injuries to the surviving rape victims are often lifelong.

Well,' Lockwood said, "if you judge success by the number of enemies you make, that was a highly successful evening.

Isn't it hard to maintain an argument when you can read each other's mind?