“What is happening in the world today? We have been living through an epoch in which wars, tyrannies and privations seem to have reached their peak...”

Source: Miracles (1947), Ch. 1: "The Scope of this Book"

The Second Declaration of Havana (1962)

Letter as quoted in "Gellhorn: A Twentieth Century Life" (2003) written by Caroline Moorehead.
Context: War happens to people, one by one. That is really all I have to say and it seems to me I have been saying it forever. Unless they are immediate victims, the majority of mankind behaves as if war was an act of God which could not be prevented; or they behave as if war elsewhere was none of their business. It would be a bitter cosmic joke if we destroy ourselves due to atrophy of the imagination.

Speech to the Aspen Institute ("Shaping a New Global Community") (5 August 1990) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/108174
Third term as Prime Minister

Source: The Responsible Self: An Essay in Christian Moral Philosophy (1963), pp. 60-61

"A Native Hill"
The Long-Legged House (1969)
Context: We have lived by the assumption that what was good for us would be good for the world. We have been wrong. We must change our lives, so that it will be possible to live by the contrary assumption that what is good for the world will be good for us... We must recover the sense of the majesty of the creation and the ability to be worshipful in its presence. For it is only on the condition of humility and reverence before the world that our species will be able to remain in it.

Ends and Means (1937)

"Remarks to the Staff and Families of U.S. Embassy, Paris" (17 November 2015) http://www.state.gov/secretary/remarks/2015/11/249565.htm on the November 2015 Paris attacks; also quoted in "John Kerry: Charlie Hebdo Attack Had ‘Legitimacy,’ ‘Rationale’ Behind It" http://www.mediaite.com/online/john-kerry-charlie-hebdo-attack-had-legitimacy-rationale-behind-it/ by Alex Griswold, mediaite.com (17 November 2015)
Context: There’s something different about what happened from Charlie Hebdo, and I think everybody would feel that. There was a sort of particularized focus and perhaps even a legitimacy in terms of — not a legitimacy, but a rationale that you could attach yourself to somehow and say, okay, they’re really angry because of this and that. This Friday was absolutely indiscriminate. It wasn’t to aggrieve one particular sense of wrong. It was to terrorize people. It was to attack everything that we do stand for. That’s not an exaggeration. It was to assault all sense of nationhood and nation-state and rule of law and decency, dignity, and just put fear into the community and say, “Here we are.” And for what? What’s the platform? What’s the grievance? That we’re not who they are? They kill people because of who they are and they kill people because of what they believe. And it’s indiscriminate. They kill Shia. They kill Yezidis. They kill Christians. They kill Druze. They kill Ismaili. They kill anybody who isn’t them and doesn’t pledge to be that. And they carry with them the greatest public display of misogyny that I’ve ever seen, not to mention a false claim regarding Islam. It has nothing to do with Islam; it has everything to do with criminality, with terror, with abuse, with psychopathism — I mean, you name it.
And that’s why when some people — I even had a member of my own family email me and say, “More bombs aren’t the solution,” they said. Well, in principle, no. In principle, if you can educate and change people and provide jobs and make a difference if that’s what they want, sure. But in this case, that’s not what’s happening. This is just raw terror to set up a caliphate to expand and expand and spread one notion of how you live and who you have to be. That is the antithesis of everything that brought our countries together — why Lafayette came to America to help us find liberty, and all of the evolutions of the struggles of France, the governments, to find the liberte, egalite, fraternite, and make it real in life every day. And all of that peacefulness was shattered in the span of an hour-plus on Friday night when people were going about their normal business. And they purposefully chose a concert, chose restaurants, chose places where people engage in social dialogue and exchange, and they object to that too.
So this is not a situation where we have a choice. We have been at war with these guys since last year. President Obama said that very clearly. And every single country — not just in the region, but around the world — is opposed to what they are doing to the norms of human behavior and the standards by which we try to live.

Source: The Fiery Heart