Shall We Dance No war is inevitable until it breaks out

Shall We Dance

No war is inevitable until it breaks out. Wars based on principle are far more attacker will not Shall We Dance that which he is after. We used to wonder where war lived, what it was that made it so vile. And now we realize that we know where it ourselves. It is the job of thinking people not to be on the side of the executioners. The welfare of the people in particular has always been the alibi of tyrants. The evil that is in the world almost always comes of ignorance, and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence if they lack understanding. When a war breaks out, people say: Its too stupid, it cant last long. But though a war may be too stupid, that doesnt prevent its lasting. Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding. Force always attracts men of low morality. It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder. The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing. The release of atomic energy has not created a new problem. It has merely made more urgent the necessity of solving an existing one. Nothing will end war unless the people themselves refuse to go to war. How vile and despicable war seems to me! I would rather be hacked to pieces than take part in such an abominable business. Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth. It is unfortunately none too well understood that, Shall We Dance as the State has no money of its own, so it has no power of its own. What is absurd and monstrous about war is that men who have no personal quarrel should be trained to murder one another in cold blood. The next may well bury Western civilization forever. Violence can only be concealed by a lie, and the lie can only be maintained by violence. The demands of internal growth are incomparably more important to the need for any external expansion of our power. Anyone who has proclaimed violence his method inexorably must choose lying as his principle. About the quote : This quote is often mis-attributed to Mikhail Gorbachev, who merely quoted the remark from Solzhenitsyns Nobel prize Harvard address.