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We have become blind to the alternatives to violence. This involves us in a sort of official madness, in which, while following what seems to be a perfect logic of self-defense and detterence, we commit one absurdity after another: We seek to preserve peace by fighting a war, or to advance freedom by subsidizing dictatorships, or to "win the hearts and minds of the people" by poisoning their crops and burning their villages and confining them in concentration camps; we seek to uphold the "truth" of our cause with lies, or to answer conscientious dissent with threats and slurs and intimidations. … I have come to the realization that I can no longer imagine a war that I would believe to be either useful or necessary. I would be against any war.
--
"A Statement Against the War in Vietnam" an address at the University of Kentucky (10 February 1968)

 

Wendell Berry

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"I cannot explain. There are things that I can't make clear, because you are wilfully blind to all that I believe in. For what do you imagine we are fighting this great war, if it is not to reestablish the belief in love as the guiding principle of life?"
Laird shook his head. "We are fighting to redress a balance, which was in danger of being lost."
"The balance of power?"
"Heavens! — no! The balance of philosophy."
Pierson smiled. "That sounds very clever, George; but again, I don't follow you."
"The balance between the sayings: 'Might is Right,' and 'Right is Might.' They're both half-truth, but the first was beating the other out of the field. All the rest of it is cant, you know. And by the way, sir, your Church is solid for punishment of the evildoer. Where's mercy there? Either its God is not merciful, or else it doesn't believe in its God.

 

John Galsworthy

 

Paradine poured himself a stiff shot of whiskey. "That's pretty awful. You're not limiting to math."
"Right! I'm not limiting it at all. How can I? I'm not conditioned to x logic."
"There's the answer," Jane said, with a sigh of relief. "Who is? It'd take such a person to make the sort of toys you apparently think these are."
Holloway nodded, his eyes, behind the thick lenses, blinking. "Such people may exist."
"Where?"
"They might prefer to keep hidden."
"Supermen?"
"I wish I knew. You see, Paradine, we've got yardstick trouble again. By our standards these people might seem super-doopers in certain respects. In others they might seem moronic. It's not a quantitative difference; it's qualitative. They think different. And I'm sure we can do things they can't."
"Maybe they wouldn't want to," Jane said.

 

Lewis Padgett

 

"You fought for the knife?"
"Yes, but — "
"Then you're a warrior. That's what you are. Argue with anything else, but don't argue with your own nature."
Will knew that the man was speaking the truth. But it wasn't a welcome truth. It was heavy and painful. The man seemed to know that, because he let Will bow his head before he spoke again.
"There are two great powers," the man said, "and they've been fighting since time began. Every advance in human life, every scrap of knowledge and wisdom and decency we have has been torn by one side from the teeth of the other. Every little increase in human freedom has been fought over ferociously between those who want us to know more and be wiser and stronger, and those who want us to obey and be humble and submit."
"And now those two powers are lining up for battle. And each of them wants that knife of yours more than anything else. You have to choose, boy. We've been guided here, both of us — you with the knife, and me to tell you about it."

 

Philip Pullman

 

"You leave me without hope," Brys said.
"I am sorry for that. Do not seek to find hope among your leaders. They are the repositories of poison. Their interest in you extends only so far as their ability to control you. For you, they seek duty and obedience, and they will ply you with the language of stirring faith. They seek followers, and woe to those who question, or voice challenge."

 

Steven Erikson

 

To a visitor who described himself as a seeker after Truth the Master said, "If what you seek is Truth, there is one thing you must have above all else."
"I know. An overwhelming passion for it."
"No. An unremitting readiness to admit you may be wrong."

 

Anthony de Mello