No matter how pragmatic you are, you need some fundamental convictions. You need an element of idealism because the tough decisions in foreign policy are all something like 51:49. They’re very close and if you don’t have any conviction…
“Germany proves that removing statues does not erase history, nor cause it to be forgotten. If anything, it may have the opposite effect.”
― Fallen Idols: Twelve Statues That Made History
― Fallen Idols: Twelve Statues That Made History
“It was not what they did in war that made them proud of their past, they said. It was what they had done in peace. It was the art they made, the homage they paid to mystery and beauty.”
― The Shortest Day
― The Shortest Day
“Statues are not neutral, and do not exist in vacuums. Our reactions to them depend on who they commemorate, who put them up, who defends them, who pulls them down, and why.”
― Fallen Idols: Twelve Statues That Made History
― Fallen Idols: Twelve Statues That Made History
“The statue of Stalin’s boots that now stands in Budapest is not only a statue of a statue; it is a statue that commemorates the pulling down of a statue.”
― Fallen Idols: Twelve Statues That Made History
― Fallen Idols: Twelve Statues That Made History
“You could blame the war. You could blame the idiots who made the war. You could blame Kiowa for going to it. You could blame the rain. You could blame the river. You could blame the field, the mud, the climate. You could blame the enemy. You could blame the mortar rounds. You could blame people who were too lazy to read a newspaper, who were bored by the daily body counts, who switched channels at the mention of politics. You could blame whole nations. You could blame God. You could blame the munitions makers or Karl Marx or a trick of fate or an old man in Omaha who forgot to vote.”
― The Things They Carried
― The Things They Carried
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