2000s, 2003, Remarks on U.S.-British relations and foreign policy (November 2003)
“We cannot avoid conflict, conflict with society, other individuals and with oneself. Conflicts may be the sources of defeat, lost life and a limitation of our potentiality but they may also lead to greater depth of living and the birth of more far-reaching unities, which flourish in the tensions that engender them.”
As quoted in Turning Conflict Into Profit : A Roadmap for Resolving Personal and Organizational Disputes (2005) by Larry Axelrod and Rowland Johnson
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Karl Jaspers 44
German psychiatrist and philosopher 1883–1969Related quotes
Source: 1960s, Conflict and defense: A general theory, 1962, p. 5
“Conflict cannot be avoided, but perhaps it can be confined to a mental theater.”
Source: Vamps and Tramps (1994), "No Law in the Arena: A Pagan Theory of Sexuality", p. 94
Context: A pagan education would sharpen the mind, steel the will, and seduce the senses. Our philosophy should be both contemplative and pugilistic, admitting aggression (as Christianity does not) as central to our mythology. The beasts of passion must be confronted, and the laws of nature understood. Conflict cannot be avoided, but perhaps it can be confined to a mental theater.
Anatol Rapoport, Conflict in man-made environment. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1974; As cited in M.J. Apter, J.H. Kerr, S. Murgatroyd (1993) Advances in Reversal Theory. p. 63-64
1970s and later
1930s, Address at the Dedication of the Memorial on the Gettysburg Battlefield (1938)
Context: To the hurt of those who came after him, Lincoln's plea was long denied. A generation passed before the new unity became accepted fact. In later years new needs arose, and with them new tasks, worldwide in their perplexities, their bitterness and their modes of strife. Here in our land we give thanks that, avoiding war, we seek our ends through the peaceful processes of popular government under the Constitution. It is another conflict, a conflict as fundamental as Lincoln's, fought not with glint of steel, but with appeals to reason and justice on a thousand fronts — seeking to save for our common country opportunity and security for citizens in a free society. We are near to winning this battle. In its winning and through the years may we live by the wisdom and the humanity of the heart of Abraham Lincoln.
“The most constructive way of resolving conflicts is to avoid them.”
Concurring, Western Pacific Railroad Corp. v. Western Pacific Railroad Co., 345 U.S. 247, 270 (1953).
Judicial opinions
Source: Organizational stress: Studies in role conflict and ambiguity, 1964, p. 20
Designing the Future (2007)