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Like a baseball game, wars are not over till they are over. Wars don't run on a clock like football. No previous generation was so hopelessly unrealistic that this had to be explained to them.
Thomas Sowell
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Interpretation

What this quote means

The outcome of a war cannot be determined until it has fully concluded, unlike timed sports games.

In this quote, Thomas Sowell emphasizes that wars are complex and extend beyond set time limits, contrasting them with sports like football, where results are clear-cut within a regulated timeframe. He reflects on the naivety of previous generations who may have misunderstood the unpredictable and unending nature of conflict, highlighting the need for a realistic perspective on war.

Themes

WarConflictRealismSportsTime

In practice

Example use cases

In a discussion about the nature of war, this quote can help illustrate the complexities involved.

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