We have contingency plans for war, but none for peace.
Interpretation
We often prepare for conflict but neglect to plan for maintaining peace.
This quote highlights the tendency of societies and organizations to prioritize strategies for war and conflict, while failing to devise effective plans for achieving and sustaining peace. It suggests a critical flaw in our approach to governance and international relations, emphasizing the need for proactive measures to promote harmony and resolve disputes before they escalate into violence.
In practice
This quote could be used in a speech about foreign policy to highlight the importance of peacekeeping efforts.
Our surest protection against assault from abroad has been not all our guards, gates and guns, or even our two oceans, but our essential goodness as a people. Our richest asset has been not our material wealth but our values.
The damage done to this country by its own misconduct in the last few months and years, to its very heart and soul, is far greater and longer lasting than any damage that any terrorist could possibly inflict upon us.
Public opinion rarely considers the needs of the next generation or the history of the last. It is frequently hampered by myths and misinformation, by stereotypes and shibboleths, and by an inate resistance to innovation.
To be suspicious is not a fault. To be suspicious all the time without coming to a conclusion is the defect.
He told me once that there was no better faith than a wounded faith and sometimes I wonder if that is what he was doing all along --trying to wound his faith in order to test it--and I was just another stone in the way of his God.
'Speak when you're spoken to!' The Queen sharply interrupted her. 'But if everybody obeyed that rule,' said Alice, who was always ready for a little argument, 'and if you only spoke when you were spoken to, and the other person always waited for you to begin, you see nobody would ever say anything, so that - ' 'Ridiculous!' cried the Queen. 'Why, don't you see, child - ' here she broke off with a frown, and, after thinking for a minute, suddenly changed the subject of the conversation.
Principles are only tools in the hands of God; they will soon be thrown away when they are no longer useful.
Global terrorism is extreme both in its lack of realistic goals and in its cynical exploitation of the vulnerability of complex systems.
Of our relation to all creation we can never know anything whatsoever. All is immensity and chaos. But, since all this knowledge of our limitations cannot possibly be of any value to us, it is better to ignore it in our daily conduct of life.
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