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Quote by Kathe Kollwitz

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The diary and letters of Kaethe Kollwitz

The diary and letters of Kaethe Kollwitz provide a rare glimpse into the life and thoughts of one of Germany's most influential artists. Through her personal writings, readers can explore Kollwitz's experiences, inspirations, and challenges as she navigated the complexities of her personal and professional life during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. more

Author

Kathe Kollwitz

Kathe Kollwitz was a German artist renowned for her prints and sculptures. Her works often focused on social and political issues, as well as the depiction of family and maternal love. Born on July 8, 1867, she passed away on April 22, 1945. more

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“What vast additions to the conveniences and comforts of living might mankind have acquired, if the money spent in wars had been employed in works of public utility; what an extension of agriculture even to the tops of our mountains; what rivers rendered navigable, or joined by canals; what bridges, aqueducts, new roads, and other public works, edifices, and improvements might not have been obtained by spending those millions in doing good, which in the last war have been spent in doing mischief.”

“What the horrors of war are, no one can imagine. They are not wounds and blood and fever, spotted and low, or dysentery, chronic and acute, cold and heat and famine. They are intoxication, drunken brutality, demoralization and disorder on the part of the inferior... jealousies, meanness, indifference, selfish brutality on the part of the superior.”

“Those who actually set out to see the fall of a city or those who choose to go to a front line, are obviously asking themselves to what extent they are cowards. But the tests they set themselves - there is a dead body, can you bear to look at it? - are nothing in comparison with the tests that are sprung on them. It is not the obvious tests that matter (do you go to pieces in a mortar attack?) but the unexpected ones (here is a man on the run, seeking your help - can you face him honestly?).”

“The natural principle of war is to do the most harm to our enemy with the least harm to ourselves; and this of course is to be effected by stratagem.”