Quotes About Conflict

For most of the twentieth century, for most Americans, the what and why of our national defense seemed pretty straightforward. We lived with the possibility of being attacked by another great power, or being drawn into a conflict between great powers, or having America's vital interests—as defined by the wise men in Washington—threatened by some foreign actor. After

history was sure to run along its predetermined course, an endless cycle of fear, hunger and conflict, dominance and weakness?

For war was contradiction, as was the history of America.

we believe ourselves to be a tolerant people even as racial, religious, and cultural tensions roil the landscape. And instead of resolving these tensions or mediating these conflicts, our politics fans them, exploits them, and drives us further apart.

I began to understand the true nature of my adversary.

But I had my legs beneath me now and was convinced I was right, particularly on the more general principle that America shouldn't be afraid to engage its adversaries or push for diplomatic solutions to conflict.

People think it's all a game," she said. "They don't care that there are thousands of men with guns out there who believe every word that's being said.

casings, the last remnants of tactical nuclear

Both Marty and Smalls knew that in politics, like religion, power lay in certainty—and that one man's certainty always threatened another's.

In truth, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict also weighed on me personally. Some of the earliest moral instruction I got from my mother revolved around the Holocaust, an unconscionable catastrophe that, like slavery, she explained, was rooted in the inability or unwillingness to recognize the humanity of others.

year by year—through Vietnam, riots, feminism, and Nixon's southern strategy; through busing, Roe v. Wade, urban crime, and white flight; through affirmative action, the Moral Majority

You know things have hit a low point when our closest allies think we're worse on an issue than North Korea," Ben said, shaking his head.

As a general rule, I would say that human beings never behave more badly toward one another than when they believe they are protecting God.

What I noticed at Grace-Calvary is the same thing I notice whenever people aim to solve their conflicts with one another by turning to the Bible: defending the dried ink marks on the page becomes more vital than defending the neighbor. As a general rule, I would say that human beings never behave more badly toward one another than when they believe they are protecting God. In the words of Arun Gandhi, grandson of Mohandas, 'People of the Book risk putting the book above people.

War is not nice.

Living with integrity means: Not settling for less than what you know you deserve in your relationships. Asking for what you want and need from others. Speaking your truth, even though it might create conflict or tension. Behaving in ways that are in harmony with your personal values. Making choices based on what you believe, and not what others believe.

To fight against a war or, better yet, an entire war machine, we had to become warriors ourselves. This is the cunning symmetry of war: Enemies tend to come to resemble one another. And this was perhaps especially so in a culture that appallingly—to us—applied the war meme to just about anything, as in the War on Poverty.

She had killed literally hundreds of men, usually for business reasons, but had never learned to deal with them in a one-sided amatory situation.

the jury was overwhelmed by the tangle of conflicting tales of Austrian spies, slave-smugglers, mysterious veiled ladies, nameless hired bravos, Italian politics, and enraged divas

There are real problems, not just money and power, in my own lands.

If every soldier were given his vote, no battles would ever be fought.

That was the trouble with war, the Hawk thought detachedly:

I could never work out whether we were to view religion as a life-insurance policy or a life sentence. I can understand a wrathful God who'd just as soon dangle us all from a hook. And I can understand a tender, unprejudiced Jesus. But I could never quite feature the two of them living in the same house. You wind up walking on eggshells, never knowing which... is at home at the moment.

If you never stepped on anybody's toes, you never been for a walk.