Friday, July 10, 2009

Quote(s): William James and Winston Churchill on violence

Two blood-curdling (and, in my rather Hobbesian opinion, accurate) quotes about violence from Winston Churchill and William James:

"The story of the human race is war. Except for brief periods and precarious interludes there has never been peace in the world; and long before history began murderous strife was universal and unending."
– Winston Churchill
"Shall we all commit suicide?" (1924)

"We, the lineal representatives of the successful enactors of one scene of slaughter after another, must, whatever more pacific virtues we may also possess, still carry about with us ready at any moment to burst into flames, the smoldering and sinister traits of character by means of which they lived through so many massacres, harming others, but themselves unharmed."
– William James
Principles of Psychology (1890)

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