Loyalty means nothing unless it has at its heart the absolute principle of self-sacrifice.
Woodrow WilsonRead
It must be a peace without victory... Victory would mean peace forced upon the loser, a victor's terms imposed upon the vanquished. It would be accepted in humiliation, under duress, at an intolerable sacrifice, and would leave a sting, a resentment, a bitter memory upon which terms of peace would rest, not permanently, but only as upon quicksand. Only a peace between equals can last.
Interpretation
What this quote means
True peace can only be achieved when both sides are treated as equals, rather than one imposing their will over the other.
In this quote, Woodrow Wilson emphasizes that a peace agreement cannot be lasting if it is based on one party's victory over another. When peace is forced upon the defeated, it breeds resentment and a lack of true reconciliation. Only when both sides are treated as equals can a sustainable peace be established, ensuring that neither side feels humiliated or oppressed.
Themes
PeaceVictoryEqualityResentmentLastingReconciliation
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a speech about conflict resolution and peacebuilding.
More from Woodrow Wilson
All quotes →Since trade ignores national boundaries and the manufacturer insists on having the world as a market, the flag of his nation must follow him, and the doors of the nations which are closed against him must be battered down. Concessions obtained by financiers must be safeguarded by ministers of state, even if the sovereignty of unwilling nations be outraged in the process. Colonies must be obtained or planted, in order that no useful corner of the world may be overlooked or left unused.
Woodrow WilsonRead
The history of liberty is the history of limitations on the power of government, not the increase of it. When we resist, therefore, the concentration of power, we are resisting the processes of death, because concentration of power is what always precedes the destruction of human liberties.
Woodrow WilsonRead
We grow great by dreams. All big men are dreamers.
Woodrow WilsonRead
The way to stop financial joyriding is to arrest the chauffeur, not the automobile.
Woodrow WilsonRead
Once lead this people into war, and they'll forget there ever was such a thing as tolerance. To fight, you must be brutal and ruthless, and the spirit of ruthless brutality will enter into the very fiber of our national life, infecting Congress, the courts, the policeman on the beat, the man in the street.
Woodrow WilsonRead
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