QuoteProject
Like a baseball game, wars are not over till they are over. Wars don't run on a clock like football. No previous generation was so hopelessly unrealistic that this had to be explained to them.
Thomas Sowell
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

The outcome of a war cannot be determined until it has fully concluded, unlike timed sports games.

In this quote, Thomas Sowell emphasizes that wars are complex and extend beyond set time limits, contrasting them with sports like football, where results are clear-cut within a regulated timeframe. He reflects on the naivety of previous generations who may have misunderstood the unpredictable and unending nature of conflict, highlighting the need for a realistic perspective on war.

Themes

WarConflictRealismSportsTime

In practice

Example use cases

In a discussion about the nature of war, this quote can help illustrate the complexities involved.

More from Thomas Sowell

Stopping illegal immigration would mean that wages would have to rise to a level where Americans would want the jobs currently taken by illegal aliens.
Thomas SowellRead
Blacks were not enslaved because they were black but because they were available. Slavery has existed in the world for thousands of years. Whites enslaved other whites in Europe for centuries before the first black was brought to the Western hemisphere. Asians enslaved Europeans. Asians enslaved other Asians. Africans enslaved other Africans, and indeed even today in North Africa, blacks continue to enslave blacks.
Thomas SowellRead
One of the reasons for conspiracy theories is an assumption that people in high places always know what they are doing. When they do something that makes no sense, devious reasons are imagined by conspiracy theorists, when in fact it may be due to plain old ignorance and incompetence.
Thomas SowellRead
You will never understand bureaucracies until you understand that for bureaucrats procedure is everything and outcomes are nothing.
Thomas SowellRead
The real problem, both in discussions of mass shootings and in discussions of gun control, is that too many people are too committed to a vision to allow mere facts to interfere with their beliefs, and the sense of superiority that those beliefs give them.
Thomas SowellRead
Why is history important? Without history, many people have no idea how many of today's half-baked ideas have been tried, again and again - and have repeatedly led to disaster. Most of these ideas are not new. They are just being recycled with re-treaded rhetoric.
Thomas SowellRead

Similar quotes

My father wanted to be a hero. He went to the Air Force Academy, was valedictorian, and then he found himself strafing villagers in Vietnam in a war he didn't want to be in and didn't understand. He was extremely conflicted about the line where he went from being the good guy to possibly being the bad guy.
Patty JenkinsRead
He once told Allie and I that if he'd had to shoot anybody, he wouldn't've known which direction to shoot in. He said the Army was practically as full of bastards as the Nazis were.
J. D. SalingerRead
We come across thirty or so hurried graves with makeshift wooden markers. 'Private Edwards, E.', a number, and that was all. Fourteen days ago he was alive, thinking feeling, hoping... If war was a game of cards, I'd say someone was cheating.
Spike MilliganRead
Air power may either end war or end civilization.
Winston ChurchillRead
The natural formation of the country is the soldier's best ally
Sun TzuRead
So many nurses had turned into emotionally disturbed handmaidens of the war, in their yellow-and-crimson uniforms with bone buttons.
Michael OndaatjeRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.