The cause of war is preparation for war.
Interpretation
War arises from the mindset and actions of those preparing for it.
This quote by W. E. B. Du Bois suggests that the underlying reason for conflicts and wars is not merely the act of war itself, but rather the prior preparations and the mentalities that lead to such escalations. It emphasizes the idea that if societies focus on preparing for war, they inadvertently create an environment conducive to conflict, invoking a cycle of violence rooted in anticipation and readiness for battle.
In practice
This quote can be used in a discussion about the military-industrial complex and its impacts on global peace.
Before the Civil War, the Negro was certainly as efficient a workman as the raw immigrant from Ireland or Germany. But, whereas the Irishmen found economic opportunity wide and daily growing wider, the Negro found public opinion determined to 'keep him in his place.'
Men we shall have only as we make manhood the object of the work of the schools - intelligence, broad sympathy, knowledge of the world that was and is, and of the relation of men to it - this is the curriculum of that Higher Education which must underlie true life.
School houses do not teach themselves - piles of brick and mortar and machinery do not send out men. It is the trained, living human soul, cultivated and strengthened by long study and thought, that breathes the real breath of life into boys and girls and makes them human, whether they be black or white, Greek, Russian or American.
Why did God make me an outcast and a stranger in mine own house? The shades of the prison-house closed round about us all: walls strait and stubborn to the whitest, but relentlessly narrow, tall, and unscalable to sons of night who must plod darkly on in resignation, or beat unavailing palms against the stone, or steadily, half hopelessly, watch the streak of blue above.
For most people, it is enough for the world to know that they aspire. The world does not ask what their aspirations are, trusting that those aspirations are for the best and greatest things. But with regard to the Negroes in America, there is a feeling that their aspirations in some way are not consistent with the great ideals.
For fifteen years, I was a teacher of youth. They were years out of the fullness and bloom of my younger manhood. They were years mingled of half breathless work, of anxious self-questionings, of planning and replanning, of disillusion, or mounting wonder.
The moment a man claims a right to control the will of a fellow being by physical force, he is at heart a slaveholder.
Oh dear,' says God, 'I hadn't thought of that,' and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.
Our sanity depends essentially on a narrowness of vision--the ability to select the elements vital to survival, while ignoring the great truths.
I experienced an ecstasy of unity. I not only saw the connectedness, I felt it and experienced it sentiently. The restraints and boundaries of flesh and bone fell away.
How can we live in harmony? First we need to know we are all madly in love with the same God.
Vanity is a static thing. It puts it faith in what it has, and is easily wounded. Pride is active, and satisfied only with what it can do, hence accustomed not to feel small stings.
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