We have thought of peace as the passive and war as the active way of living. The opposite is true. War is not the most strenuous life. It is a kind of rest-cure compared to the task of reconciling our differences.
Interpretation
Peace requires active effort and engagement, while war is a destructive escape from conflict.
Mary Parker Follett highlights a profound understanding of the nature of peace and war. She suggests that society often views peace as too passive and war as an assertive and active state, but in reality, it takes much more strength and energy to engage in constructive dialogue and reconciliation than it does to engage in warfare. Thus, the real challenge lies in navigating differences and fostering peace, which is a labor-intensive process that demands resilience and commitment.
In practice
This quote could be used in a peace-building workshop to emphasize the need for active engagement in resolving conflicts.
There are three ways of dealing with difference: domination, compromise, and integration. By domination only one side gets what it wants; by compromise neither side gets what it wants; by integration we find a way by which both sides may get what they wish.
Unity, not uniformity, must be our aim.
Leadership is not defined by the exercise of power but by the capacity to increase the sense of power among those led. The most essential work of the leader is to create more leaders.
It is possible to conceive conflict as not necessarily a wasteful outbreak of incompatibilities, but a normal process by which socially valuable differences register themselves for the enrichment of all concerned.
Unity, not uniformity, must be our aim. We attain unity only through variety. Differences must be integrated, not annihilated, not absorbed.
People live in sleep, do everything in sleep, and do not know they are asleep.
Never again will you be capable of ordinary human feeling. Everything will be dead inside you. Never again will you be capable of love, or friendship, or joy of living, or laughter, or curiosity, or courage, or integrity. You will be hollow. We shall squeeze you empty and then we shall fill you with ourselves.
Why do we argue? Life's so fragile, a successful virus clinging to a speck of mud, suspended in endless nothing.
The priestly vocation is essentially a call to sanctity, in the form that derives from the Sacrament of Holy Orders. Sanctity is intimacy with God; it is the imitation of Christ, poor, chaste and humble; it is unreserved love for souls and self-giving to their true good; it is love for the church which is holy and wants us to be holy, because such is the mission that Christ has entrusted to it. Each one of you must be holy also in order to help your brothers pursue their vocation to sanctity.
God promised to make you free. He never promised to make you independent.
Corporations are totalitarian institutions. Board of directors at the top of managers give orders, everyone follows orders..... At the very bottom of command, if you are lucky you can rent yourself to it and get a job , and if you are sufficiently propagandized you may even buy some of the junk they produce and so on.
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