Friday, March 06, 2009

War, misery, beauty, goodness

I first read Anne Frank's diary when I was fourteen years old and it had an enormous impact on me. I'm offering these quotations today because they seem to go with the Karen Armstrong video I've posted below - especially the very last one:

I don't believe that the big men, the politicians and the capitalists alone are guilty of the war. Oh, no, the little man is just as keen, otherwise the people of the world would have risen in revolt long ago! There is an urge and rage in people to destroy, to kill, to murder, and until all mankind, without exception, undergoes a great change, wars will be waged, everything that has been built up, cultivated and grown, will be destroyed and disfigured, after which mankind will have to begin all over again.
~~~
I don't think of all the misery but of the beauty that still remains.
~~~
It's really a wonder that I haven't dropped all my ideals, because they seem so absurd and impossible to carry out. Yet I keep them, because in spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart.

- Anne Frank

No comments:

Post a Comment

New policy: Anonymous posts must be signed or they will be deleted. Pick a name, any name (it could be Paperclip or Doorknob), but identify yourself in some way. Thank you.