It makes no difference what men think of war, said the judge. War endures. As well ask men what they think of stone. War was always here. Before man was, war waited for him. The ultimate trade awaiting its ultimate practitioner. That is the way it was and will be. That way and not some other way.
Interpretation
War is an intrinsic part of human existence, existing independently of human perceptions.
This quote reflects on the persistent nature of war, suggesting that it is a fundamental aspect of the human experience that transcends individual opinions. The judge's perspective indicates that war is not merely a byproduct of human conflict, but rather an eternal force that has always existed, waiting for humanity to engage with it, just like stone has existed long before humans appeared.
In practice
During a discussion on the impacts of warfare in history.
Yet it is the narrative that is the life of the dream while the events themselves are often interchangeable. The events of the waking world on the other hand are forced upon us and the narrative is the unguessed axis along which they must be strung.
See the hand that nursed the serpent. The fine hasped pipes of her fingerbones. The skin bewenned and speckled. The veins are milkblue and bulby. A thin gold ring set with diamonds. That raised the once child's heart of her to agonies of passion before I was. Here is the anguish of mortality. Hopes wrecked, love sundered. See the mother sorrowing. How everything that I was warned of's come to pass.
What he could bear in the waking world he could not by night and he sat awake for fear the dream would return.
The judge placed his hands on the ground. He looked at his inquisitor. This is my claim, he said. And yet everywhere upon it are pockets of autonomous life. Autonomous. In order for it to be mine nothing must be permitted to occur upon it save by my dispensation.
Only now is the child finally divested of all that he has been. His origins are become remote as is his destiny and not again in all the world's turning will there be terrains so wild and barbarous to try whether the stuff of creation may be shaped to man's will or whether his own heart is not another kind of clay.
He knew only that his child was his warrant. He said: If he is not the word of God God never spoke.
The will is not free - it is a phenomenon bound by cause and effect - but there is something behind the will which is free.
The only question left to be settled now is: Are women persons? And I hardly believe any of our opponents will have the hardihood to say they are not.
Occasionally God rips aside the veil, and you begin to see this very fact: All things happen for you. All things. Everything is knit together.
Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful.
There may be a time when a country will have to wake up from a vision of happiness, when they have to realize that theirs is not the perfect idea, that there are many aspects that do not correspond to the reality of what is there, the real need and aspirations of the people.
God is an ever-present spirit guiding all that happens to a wise and holy end.
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