quotations about conflict
Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral.
PAULO FREIRE
The Politics of Education: Culture, Power, and Liberation
I believe there's no such thing as a conflict that can't be ended. They're created and sustained by human beings. They can be ended by human beings. No matter how ancient the conflict, no matter how hateful, no matter how hurtful, peace can prevail.
GEORGE J. MITCHELL
The Sadat Lectures: Words and Images on Peace, 1997-2008
I've always wondered why love has to be so full of conflict and strife. Why can't love be simple? Why can't it just be as pure as two people who realize that they can't live as well, or as happily, apart as they can together?
BELLA ANDRE
Come a Little Bit Closer
The difference between constructive conflict and destructive conflict is like the difference between electricity and an atomic bomb. We have to initiate conflict in certain situations if we want a vital relationship. If we settle for an emotionally distant relationship with our partner, then we can afford to be perpetually nice. Conflict and anger won't be necessary. Totally avoiding conflict will get us a peaceful and vapid relationship. If we want emotional closeness instead, then we'll have to pay for it with occasional discomfort.
BRYCE KAYE
The Marriage First Aid Kit
Every conflict is like an iceberg; what we initially see or understand is only a portion of what is happening. Our initial positions provide clues about the conflict; however, they are only part of the story.
DEIDRE COMBS
The Way of Conflict: Elemental Wisdom for Resolving Disputes and Transcending Differences
Fool killing fool
Conflict makes us tick
Pig killing pig
The human race is sick
DISMEMBER
"On Frozen Fields"
People who have lived through a terrible conflict may be hungry and desperate, but they are not stupid. They often have very good ideas about how peace can evolve.
LEYMAH GBOWEE
Mighty Be Our Powers
The conflict still lay up ahead
Where cowards fear to tread
FRONT LINE ASSEMBLY
"Search and Destroy", Millennium
As I've mentioned, I am an only child. This makes me a member of the worldwide super-smart-afraid-of-conflict narcissist club. And let me emphasize: afraid of conflict. Since I had no siblings to routinely challenge/hit me and equally no interest in playing sports, I had grown up without any experience in conflict. I therefore had no reason to imagine that confrontation of any kind, ranging from fighting to kissing, was not probably fatal.
JOHN HODGMAN
Vacationland: True Stories from Painful Beaches
Questions are far more effective than defensive statements. They do not imply agreement, but they do convey interest and a desire to understand and facilitate an environment for peak performance, a central thread of effective leadership.... The next time someone accuses you of virtually anything, ask some questions. Resolving the situation may take more time, but the outcome will likely be more productive for both of you.
STEPHEN YOUNG
Micro Messaging
There are no victims and no conflicts of interest among rational men, men who do not desire the unearned and do not view one another with a cannibal's lust.
AYN RAND
Atlas Shrugged
The need for justice grows out of the conflict of human interests. That is to say, if there were no conflict of interests among mankind we should never have invented the word justice, nor conceived the idea for which it stands.
THOMAS NIXON CARVER
Essays in Social Justice
For me, conflict has been much more common in my relationships with extroverts. Extroverts are more draining for me than introverts, as they may have a more energetic presence and require more attention. Therefore, extroverts are more likely to see me struggling with irritability and shortness of speech, which can produce conflict situations. An additional trigger point for extroverts with me can be my silences or seeming inexpressiveness. Into these vacuums, they are liable to insert all kinds of assumptions and interpretations.
ADAM S. MCHUGH
Introverts in the Church: Finding Our Place in an Extroverted Culture
Sometimes we're loyal to more than one thing. When there's a conflict, we have to choose which loyalty to honor.
CLAUDIA GRAY
Lost Stars
Action in conflict is like movement in a resistant element. Just as the simplest movement, walking, cannot easily be performed in water, in conflict it is difficult for normal efforts to achieve even moderate results.
NORTON PALEY
Clausewitz Talks Business
At the bottom no one in life can help anyone else in life; this one experiences over and over in every conflict and every perplexity: that one is alone. That isn't as bad as it may first appear; and again it is the best thing in life that each should have everything in himself; his fate, his future, his whole expanse and world.
RAINER MARIA RILKE
letter to Friedrich Westhoff, April 29, 1904
Matter is essentially multiplicity and division; and this, be it said in passing, is why all that proceeds from matter can beget only strife and all manner of conflicts between peoples and between individuals. The deeper one sinks into matter, the more the elements of division and opposition gain force and scope; and, on the other hand, the more one rises towards pure spirituality, the nearer one approaches to that unity which can only be fully realized by consciousness of the universal principles.
RENÉ GUÉNON
The Crisis of the Modern World
Conflict will never be eliminated from human affairs. Conflict is simply the active expression of difference, and an essential part of human development. Without conflict change would be impossible.
PHILIP SLATER
A Dream Deferred: America's Discontent and the Search for a New Democratic Ideal
This never ending conflict is all I have.
EMMURE
"Demons with Ryu", Speaker of the Dead
When introverts are in conflict with each other, though, it may require a map in order to follow all the silences, nonverbal cues and passive-aggressive behaviors!
ADAM S. MCHUGH
Introverts in the Church: Finding Our Place in an Extroverted Culture