“One of the things that I learned in the war is that we're not the top species on the planet because we're nice. We are a very aggressive species; it is in us. People talk a lot about how well the military turns kids into killing machines, and I'll always argue that it's just finishing school. What we do with civilization is that we learn to inhibit and rope in these aggressive tendencies, and we have to recognize them. I worry about a whole country that doesn't recognize them, because think of how many times we get ourselves into scrapes as a nation because we're always the 'good guys.”

— Karl Marlantes

Sometimes, I think if we thought we weren't always the good guys, we might actually get into less wars.
The Vietnam War (2017), episode 5, documentary by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Karl Marlantes 3

Businessman, novelist 1944

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