In history, the moments during which reason and reconciliation prevail are short and fleeting.
Interpretation
Reason and reconciliation are rare and temporary in history.
Stefan Zweig reflects on the nature of historical moments, suggesting that periods of rationality and peace are transient and difficult to maintain. This observation implies that conflict and discord are often more prevalent in human history than harmony and understanding.
In practice
During a speech about conflict resolution in a community meeting.
All my life I have been passionately interested in monomaniacs of any kind, people carried away by a single idea. The more one limits oneself, the closer one is to the infinite; these people, as unworldly as they seem, burrow like termites into their own particular material to construct, in miniature, a strange and utterly individual image of the world.
When they are preparing for war, those who rule by force speak most copiously about peace until they have completed the mobilization process.
Only ambition is fired by the coincidences of success and easy accomplishment but nothing is quite as splendidly uplifting to the heart as the defeat of a human being who battles against the invincible superiority of fate. This is always the most grandiose of all tragedies, one sometimes created by a dramatist but created thousands of times by life.
Now I am discovering the world once more. England has widened my horizon.
Only the person who has experienced light and darkness, war and peace, rise and fall, only that person has truly experienced life.
Memory is so corrupt that you remember only what you want to; if you want to forget about something, slowly but surely you do.
Palestine must be built up without violating the legitimate interests of the Arabs.. Palestine is not Rhodesia... 600,0000 Arabs live there, who before the sense of justice of the world have exactly the same rights to their homes as we have to our National Home.
We stole countries with the cunning use of flags. Just sail around the world and stick a flag in. "I claim India for Britain!" They're going "You can't claim us, we live here! Five hundred million of us!" "Do you have a flag β¦? "No..." "Well, if you don't have a flag, then you can't have a country. Those are the rules... that I just made up!
The challenge today is to convince people of the value of truth, honesty, compassion and a concern for others.
These are the days when the Christian is expected to praise every creed except his own.
Islam has always been part of America
Why, I can't help wondering, is God thought to need such ferocious defence? One might have supposed him amply capable of looking after himself.
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