The American intellectuals, in their preoccupation with reality, seem to have forgotten that the real enemy is War rather than imperial Germany. There is work to be done to prevent this war of ours from passing into popular mythology as a holy crusade. What shall we do with leaders who tell us that we go to war in moral spotlessness or who make democracy synonymous with a republican form of government?
Randolph Bourne
We can easily become as much slaves to precaution as we can to fear. Although we can never rivet our fortune so tight as to make it impregnible, we may by our excessive prudence squeeze out of the life that we are guarding so anxiously all the adventurous quality that makes it worth living.
fortune quality worth life fear living prudence
Society is one vast conspiracy for carving one into the kind of statue likes, and then placing it in the most convenient niche it has.
conspiracy society kind niche
Few people even scratch the surface, much less exhaust the contemplation of their own experience.
people experience contemplation
Diplomacy is a disguised war, in which states seek to gain by barter and intrigue, by the cleverness of arts, the objectives which they would have to gain more clumsily by means of war.
war gain arts diplomacy intrigue consequences cleverness
A man with few friends is only half-developed; there are whole sides of his nature which are locked up and have never been expressed. He cannot unlock them himself, he cannot even discover them; friends alone can stimulate him and open him.
friendship man nature friends open discover
Really to believe in human nature while striving to know the thousand forces that warp it from its ideal development-to call for and expect much from men and women, and not to be disappointed and embittered if they fall short- to try to do good with people rather than to them- this is my religion on its human side. And if God exists, I think that he must be in the warm sun, in the kindly actions of the people we know and read of, in the beautiful things of art and nature, and in the closeness of friendships.
friendship life wisdom human-nature spirituality relationships
War is the health of the state.
war
war war-crimes
Friendships are fragile things, and require as much handling as any other fragile and precious thing.
friendship
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