The principal cause of war is war itself.
Category Archive: 1916
Thomas Paine, so celebrated and so despised as he traveled through the critical events of his time, has long appealed to biographers. Paine was present at the creation both of the United States and of the French Republic. His eloquence, in the pamphlet ‘Common Sense,’ propelled the American colonists toward independence.
The Puritans left behind so full a record of what they thought and did that scholars cannot resist the temptation to make the most of it.
Everything that gets born dies.
Abhorrence of apartheid is a moral attitude, not a policy.
However, no two people see the external world in exactly the same way. To every separate person a thing is what he thinks it is – in other words, not a thing, but a think.
Vox populi vox dei: the voice of the people is the voice of God. The slogan was useful for those who first attempted to substitute the people for God as the source of political authority. Their attempt was ultimately so successful that God no longer seems to be needed in government.
Some men look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence and deem them like the Ark of the Covenant, too sacred to be touched. They ascribe to men of the preceding age a wisdom more than human and suppose what they did to be beyond amendment.
Learn how to live and you’ll know how to die; learn how to die, and you’ll know how to live.
It’s not too late to develop new friendships or reconnect with people.