The wars don't end when you sign peace treaties or when the years go by. They will echo on until I'm gone and all the widows and orphans are gone.
Tim O'BrienRead
War is a fundamental aspect of human existence. It's good to know what war entails and what the human sacrifice is.
Interpretation
What this quote means
War is an inherent part of humanity, and understanding its implications is crucial.
In this quote, Tim O'Brien emphasizes that war is deeply intertwined with human nature and existence. By acknowledging the realities of war, including the sacrifices it demands, we can grasp the profound and often painful truths about humanity's struggles and choices throughout history.
Themes
WarHuman ExistenceSacrificeUnderstanding
In practice
Example use cases
During a speech on remembrance day to highlight the importance of understanding the sacrifices made in wars.
More from Tim O'Brien
All quotes β...you find yourself studying the fine colors on the river, you feel wonder and awe at the setting of the sun, and you are filled with a hard, aching love for how the world could be and always should be, but now is not.
Tim O'BrienRead
Unlike Chicago or New York, small-town Minnesota did not allow a man's failings to disappear beneath a veil of numbers. People talked. Secrets did not stay secret.
Tim O'BrienRead
Place is so important to me. The Midwest is like a ghost in my life. It's present as I look out the window now. I see Texas, but if I close my eyes and look out the same window, I'm back in my hometown in Worthington, Minnesota, and I cherish those values and that diction.
Tim O'BrienRead
In fiction workshops, we tend to focus on matters of verisimilitude largely because such issues are so much easier to talk about than the failure of imagination.
Tim O'BrienRead
It was my view then, and still is, that you don't make war without knowing why. Knowledge of course, is always imperfect, but it seemed to me that when a nation goes to war it must have reasonable confidence in the justice and imperative of its cause. You can't fix your mistakes. Once people are dead, you can't make them undead.
Tim O'BrienRead
Similar quotes
The great decisions of human life have as a rule far more to do with the instincts and other mysterious unconscious factors than with conscious will and well-meaning reasonableness. The shoe that fits one person pinches another; there is no recipe for living that suits all cases. Each of us carries his own life-form- an indeterminable form which cannot be superseded by any other.
Carl JungRead
Power is a poison well known for thousands of years. If only no one were ever to acquire material power over others! But to the human being who has faith in some force that holds dominion over all of us, and who is therefore conscious of his own limitations, power is not necessarily fatal. For those, however, who are unaware of any higher sphere, it is a deadly poison. For them there is no antidote.
Aleksandr SolzhenitsynRead
We don't have a right to ask whether we're going to succeed or not. The only question we have a right to ask is what's the right thing to do? What does this earth require of us if we want to continue to live on it?
Wendell BerryRead
It is possible to demonstrate God's existence, although not a priori, yet a posteriori from some work of His more surely known to us.
Thomas AquinasRead
A man must ride alternately on the horses of his private and his public nature.
Ralph Waldo EmersonRead
If efforts to do social work are couched in selfish motives, then they will die a premature death. Why would my efforts get politicised? I have values I inherited from my father. He helped many. Anyone, even a postman knocking on our door would get a glass of water and some sweets.
Sachin TendulkarRead