“Until the last great war, a general expectation of material improvement was an idea peculiar to Western man. Now war and its aftermath have made economic and social progress a political imperative in every quarter of the globe. If we ignore this, there will be no peace. There has been a widening of horizons to which in the West we have been perhaps too insensitive. Yet it is as important as the extension of our vision into outer space.
Today continuing poverty and distress are a deeper and more important cause of international tensions, of the conditions that can produce war, than previously.”

— Lester B. Pearson

The Four Faces of Peace (1957)

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Lester B. Pearson 11

14th Prime Minister of Canada 1897–1972

David Smith (1906–1965) American visual artist (1906-1965)

1940s, The Question – What is your Hope' (c. 1940s)

“It is probably well that we had the war when we did. We are better off now than we would have been without it, and have made more rapid progress than we otherwise should have made… But this war was a fearful lesson, and should teach us the necessity of avoiding wars in the future.”

Ulysses S. Grant (1822–1885) 18th President of the United States

Conclusion
1880s, Personal Memoirs of General U. S. Grant (1885)

“Poverty has been created by the economic and social system that we have designed for the world. It is the institutions that we have built, and feel so proud of, which created poverty.”

Muhammad Yunus (1940) Bangladeshi banker, economist and Nobel Peace Prize recipient

"Eliminating Poverty Through Market-Based Social Entrepreneurship" in Global Urban Development Magazine (May 2005)

“Peace for us means the destruction of Israel. We are preparing for an all-out war, a war which will last for generations… We shall not rest until the day when we return to our home, and until we destroy Israel.”

Yasser Arafat (1929–2004) former Palestinian President, and Nobel Peace Prize recipient

Quoted in The Times, UK (5 August 1980).
1980s and 1990s

“The deeper we trace the political influences in history, the more are we convinced that the "will to power" has up to now been one of the strongest motives in the development of human social forms. The idea that all political and social events are but the result of given economic conditions and can be explained by them cannot endure careful consideration.”

Rudolf Rocker book Nationalism and Culture

Source: Nationalism and Culture (1937), Ch. 1 "The Insufficiency of Economic Materialism"
Context: The deeper we trace the political influences in history, the more are we convinced that the "will to power" has up to now been one of the strongest motives in the development of human social forms. The idea that all political and social events are but the result of given economic conditions and can be explained by them cannot endure careful consideration. That economic conditions and the special forms of social production have played a part in the evolution of humanity everyone knows who has been seriously trying to reach the foundations of social phenomena. This fact was well known before Marx set out to explain it in his manner. A whole line of eminent French socialists like Saint–Simon, Considerant, Louis Blanc, Proudhon and many others had pointed to it in their writings, and it is known that Marx reached socialism by the study of these very writings.

“That war in which I had been sheltering, convinced of having accepted it, of having made my own uncomfortable peace, grew more ferocious, bit deeper, reached into one's nerves and brain.”

Cesare Pavese (1908–1950) Italian poet, novelist, literary critic, and translator

Source: The house on the hill (1949), Chapter 13, p. 125

“"War is the continuation of politics." In this sense war is politics and war itself is a political action; since ancient times there has never been a war that did not have a political character.”

Mao Zedong (1893–1976) Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China

(zh-CN) “战争是政治的继续”，在这点上说，战争就是政治，战争本身就是政治性质的行动，从古以来没有不带政治性的战争。
1930s, On Protracted Warfare (1938)

“Other people have marveled at the growth and strength of America. They have wondered how a few weak and discordant colonies were able to win their independence from one of the greatest powers of the world. They have been amazed at our genius for self-government. They have been unable to comprehend how the shock of a great Civil War did not destroy our Union. They do not understand the economic progress of our people. It is true that we have had the advantage of great natural resources, but those have not been exclusively ours. Others have been equally fortunate in that direction. The progress of America has been due to the spirit of the people. It is in no small degree due to that spirit that we have been able to produce such great leaders. If coming generations are to maintain a like spirit, it will be because they continue to support the principles which these men represented. It is for that purpose that we erect memorials. We can not hold our admiration for the historic figures which we shall see here without growing stronger in our determination to perpetuate the institutions which their lives revealed and established.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

1920s, Address at the Black Hills (1927)

“The unformulated message of an assembly of news items from every quarter of the globe is that the world today is one city. All war is civil war. All suffering is our own.”

Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar-- a professor of English literature, a literary critic, and a …

Source: 1990s and beyond, A McLuhan Sourcebook (1995), p. 291

“As long as there have been men.... upon this globe.... we have held firmly to the notion of.... all of which must continue to be everlasting in time and infinite in space.”

M. C. Escher (1898–1972) Dutch graphic artist

Quote of Escher, 1959; as cited in '3. The approach to infinity' http://pi.math.cornell.edu/~mec/Winter2009/Mihai/section3.html, in: M.C. Escher and Hyperbolic Geometry http://pi.math.cornell.edu/~mec/Winter2009/Mihai/index.html - Math Explorer Club
1950's

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Lester B. Pearson 11

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