Broadcast from London (16 April 1937), quoted in Service of Our Lives (1937), pp. 120-121.
1937
Context: When we look round and consider the state of the world to-day, we see on every side bewilderment and doubt... I am no pessimist; I believe that in the end the countries of the world will find peace and prosperity— but that road will be a long and a hard one. For such a journey... above all, there is need of leadership. No one country— no group of countries— is so qualified to provide that leadership as the British Empire... I say this with no idea that we are necessarily better than other people, but because of our experience. For we, the peoples of the Empire, in our relations with one another, have set an example of mutual co-operation in the solution of our problems, such as, I believe, no group of nations has ever before achieved. We have demonstrated to the world in actual practice that difficulties can be resolved by discussion as they cannot be resolved by force.
“If we can see our difficulties, there is a way of resolving them, or the hope of a way.”
The Glass Forest (1986)
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Brian W. Aldiss 116
British science fiction author 1925–2017Related quotes
“I've twisted and turned them every way,
And can see no ending to our play.”
Sade, epilogue
Marat/Sade (1963)
“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: Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea: Why the Greeks Matter (2003), Ch.VII The Way They Went: Greco-Roman Meets Judeo-Christian
1950s, The Chance for Peace (1953)
Speech in the House of Commons (3 April 1982) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/104910
First term as Prime Minister
Source: The Monkey Grammarian (1974), Ch. 2
Context: It is not proper to project our feelings onto things or to attribute our own sensations and passions to them. Can it also be improper to see in them a guide, a way of life? To learn the art of remaining motionless amid the agitation of the whirlwind, to learn to remain still and to be as transparent as this fixed light amid the frantic branches — this may be a program for life. <!-- But the bright spot is no longer an oval pool but an incandescent triangle, traversed by very fine flutings of shadow. The triangle stirs almost imperceptibly, until little by little a luminous boiling takes place, at the outer edges first, and then, with increasing fury, in its fiery center, as if all this liquid light were a seething substance gradually becoming yellower and yellower. Will it explode? The bubbles continually flare up and die away, in a rhythm resembling that of panting breath. As the sky grows darker, the bright patch of light dims and begins to flicker; it might almost be a lamp about to go out amid turbulent shadows. The trees remain exactly where they were, although they are now clad in another light.