People want to be who they are. People don't want to assume a kind of identity . . . this persona that Americans think makes us the envy of the rest of the world. Even within our own borders there are three hundred different cultures who do not envy Americans so much that they want to give up their tribal status. —Louise Erdrich More about this quote Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
Never think that wars are irrational catastrophes: they happen when wrong ways of thinking and living bring about intolerable situations. . . . The root causes of conflict are usually to be found in some wrong way of life in which all parties have acquiesced, and for which everybody must, to some extent, bear the blame. —Dorothy L. Sayers More about this quote Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
History is a vast early warning system. —Norman Cousins More about this quote Tags: history Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
I'm sure that President Johnson would never have pursued the war in Vietnam if he'd ever had a Fulbright to [travel to] Japan, or say Bangkok, or had any feeling for what these people are like and why they acted the way they did. He was completely ignorant. —Senator J. William Fulbright More about this quote Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
It is isolation that is critical to war. You can't be abusive when you realize your connectedness. —David Kadlec More about this quote Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
All wars are civil wars, because all men are brothers. —François de Salignac de la Mothe Fenelon More about this quote Tags: war Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
America is addicted to wars of distraction. —Barbara Ehrenreich More about this quote Tags: war America Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
They wrote in the old days that it is sweet and fitting to die for one's country. But in modern war, there is nothing sweet nor fitting in your dying. You will die like a dog for no good reason. —Ernest Hemingway More about this quote Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
Making weapons is what we know how to do best, the supreme achievement of late-twentieth-century American civilization. To this blessed work we assign our finest intellect and the largest share of our treasure, and in the magnificence of an aircraft carrier or a cruise missile we find our moral and aesthetic equivalent of the Sistine ceiling and Chartres Cathedral. —Lewis Lapham More about this quote Tags: weapons morality achievement America civilization missiles Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
Q: What's the difference between religion and patriotism? A: When a dog howls at the moon, that's religion. When a dog barks at a stranger, that's patriotism. —Unknown More about this quote Tags: religion difference patriotism Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
I suffer more from the humiliations inflicted by my country than from those inflicted on her. —Simone Weil More about this quote Tags: war politics patriotism harm humiliation Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
If I got to make just one law, it would be that the men who make the decisions to drop bombs would first, every time, have to spend one whole day taking care of a baby. We were not made to do this killing thing, I swear. Back up. It's a big mistake. —Barbara Kingsolver More about this quote Tags: war law children bombs killing care Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake. —Jeannette Rankin More about this quote Tags: war winning earthquakes natural disasters Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
Say yes when nobody asked. —Lao proverb More about this quote Tags: yes Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
Compassion is not a relationship between the healer and the wounded. It's a relationship between equals. Only when we know our own darkness well can we be present with the darkness of others. Compassion becomes real when we recognize our shared humanity. —Pema Chödrön More about this quote Tags: humanity presence relationship compassion equality darkness healer wounded similarity Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email