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Quote by Karel Čapek

“It is a foible of our human nature that when we have an extremely unpleasant experience, it gives us a peculiar satisfaction if it is “the biggest” of its disagreeable kind that has happened since the world began. During a heat wave, for instance, we are very pleased if the papers announce that it is “the highest temperature reached since the year 1881,” and we feel a little resentment towards the year 1881 for having gone us one better. Or if our ears are frozen till all the skin peels off, it fills us with a certain happiness to learn that “it was the hardest frost recorded since 1786.” It is just the same with wars. The war in progress is either the most righteous or the bloodiest, or the most successful, or the longest, since such and such a time; any superlative whatever always affords us the proud satisfaction of having been through something extraordinary and record-breaking.”

Quote by Karel Čapek

Book:The Absolute at Large
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The Absolute at Large

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Karel Čapek

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Book:Coming Up for Air
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“The debacle in Iraq has reinforced the realist dictum, disparaged by idealists in the 1990s, that the legacies of geography, history and culture really do set limits on what can be accomplished in any given place. But the experience in the Balkans reinforced an idealist dictum that is equally true: One should always work near the limits of what is possible rather than cynically give up on any place. In this decade idealists went too far; in the previous one, it was realists who did not go far enough.”

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Author:Robert D. Kaplan
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WarPoliticsIraqHypocrisyCowardiceForeign PolicyIraq WarAnti War MovementSaddam HusseinRevisionism2006Neoconservatism2002Opposition To The Iraq War2003 Invasion Of IraqAmerican Enterprise InstituteFrontpage MagazineMichael LedeenNational Review
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