There are many things which we can afford to forget which it is yet well to learn.
Between two groups of people who want to make inconsistent kinds of worlds, I see no remedy but force.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote suggests that when two opposing groups have conflicting visions for the world, the only way to resolve their differences may be through coercive means.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. reflects on the inevitable clash between groups with fundamentally different aspirations for society. He implies that when two factions cannot reconcile their opposing desires to shape the world in different ways, peaceful negotiation may fail, leading to the only solution being the use of force. This encourages a contemplation on the nature of societal conflict and the extremes that may arise when divergent ideologies collide.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a debate about the justification of war in international relations.
More from Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
All quotes βOn the whole, I am on the side of the unregenerate who affirms the worth of life as an end in itself, as against the saints who deny it.
If you don't know what you want, you will probably never get it.
Why should you row a boat race? Why endure the long months of pain in preparation for a fierce half hour that will leave you all but dead? Does anyone ask the question? Is there anyone who would not go through all the costs, and more, for the moment when anguish breaks into triumph or even for the glory of having nobly lost? Is life less than a boat race? If a man will give the blood in his body to win the one, will he spend all the might of his soul to prevail in the other?
The main part of intellectual education is not the acquisition of facts, but learning how to make facts live.
Beware how you take away hope from another human being.
Similar quotes
Sometimes he could almost forget that it was there, the way you forget about the sky or the earth underfoot, but there were other times when it seemed as if there was nothing else in the world.
What is the most beautiful in virile men is something feminine; what is most beautiful in feminine women is something masculine.
It is my fundamental conviction that compassion - the natural capacity of the human heart to feel concern for and connection with another human being - constitutes a basic aspect of our nature shared by all human beings, as well as being the foundation of our happiness. All ethical teachings, whether religious or nonreligious, aim to nurture this innate and precious quality, to develop it and to perfect it.
Monks are not expected to speak about themselves; the message is important, not the person.
The Impossible Generalized Man today is the critic who believes in loving those unworthy of love as well as those worthy -yet believes this only insofar as no personal risk is entailed. Meaning he loves no one, worthy or no. This is what makes him impossible.
Things that appear on the front page of the newspaper as 'fact' are far more dangerous than the games played by a novelist, and can lead to wars.