Wars produce many stories of fiction, some of which are told until they are believed to be true.
Interpretation
Wars create fictional tales that are often accepted as truth over time.
This quote highlights how the narratives surrounding wars can become distorted over time, leading to the creation of stories that, while initially fanciful or fictional, might eventually be accepted as historical fact. It reflects on the power of storytelling and the human tendency to believe in tales that resonate with cultural or national identities, regardless of their factual accuracy.
In practice
In a speech about the impact of war on society.
The great bulk of the legal voters of the South were men who owned no slaves; their homes were generally in the hills and poor country; their facilities for educating their children, even up to the point of reading and writing, were very limited; their interest in the contest was very meagre--what there was, if they had been capable of seeing it, was with the North; they too needed emancipation.
Hold fast to the Bible. To the influence of this Book we are indebted for all the progress made in true civilization and to this we must look as our guide in the future.
Let us labor for the security of free thought, free speech, pure morals, unfettered religious sentiments, and equal rights and privileges for all men, irrespective of nationality, color, or religion;.... leave the matter of religious teaching to the family altar, the church, and the private school, supported entirely by private contribution. Keep church and state forever separate.
When news of the surrender first reached our lines our men commenced firing a salute of a hundred guns in honor of the victory. I at once sent word, however, to have it stopped. The Confederates were now our prisoners, and we did not want to exult over their downfall.
I have made it a rule of my life to trust a man long after other people gave him up, but I don't see how I can ever trust any human being again.
A hero does for others. He would do anything for people he loves, because he knows it would make their lives better. I am not that kind of person, but I want you to be. You could give something to her, to me, to those children in the quarter. You could give something I never could ... The white people out there are saying you don't have it-that you're a hog, not a man. But I know they are wrong.
Historians are to nationalism what poppy-growers in Pakistan are to heroin-addicts: we supply the essential raw material for the market.
The Cold War was over long before it was officially declared dead.
Benaras is older than history, older than tradition, older even than legend, and looks twice as old as all of them put together!
In the 1930s, the government paid writers to interview 80- and 90-year-old former slaves, and I read those accounts. I came away realizing - not surprisingly - that many slave masters were sadists who spent a lot of time thinking up creative ways of hurting people.
Indeed, for almost 10 years, Moscow had to carry on a war unsupportable by the government, a conflict that brought about the demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet empire.
As a people, our monuments never commemorate victories. They commemorate the names of the fallen. We don't need the Arc de Triomphe; we have Masada, Tel-Hai, and the Warsaw Ghetto - where the battle was lost, but the war of Jewish existence was won.
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