The Future of Civilization (1938)
Context: Unfortunately, the Manchurian crisis arose at a time when those nations who might have been expected to have perceived most clearly the necessity of preventing aggression were themselves in a condition of great internal difficulties owing to the financial crisis of those days. … And perhaps it was inevitable in such circumstances that our people should take little interest in any foreign questions.
It was partly for these reasons, no doubt, that the conquest of Manchuria and the other northern provinces of China came to be consummated, and all the ambitious statesmen of the world were given an object lesson of how, in spite of the League and in spite of the Covenant, the old military policies could be successfully carried out.
And may I venture to emphasize at this point a lesson which must never be forgotten: how much one problem in international affairs affects the whole conduct of those affairs. It was no doubt the failure of the League to check aggression in the Far East which first struck a blow at the whole system which we were trying to establish and which facilitated even greater attacks on international security.
“When the times are a crucible, when the air is full of crisis, those who are the most themselves are the victims.”
Source: Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
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Gregory Maguire 87
Novelist 1954Related quotes
Henry Powell Spring in 1944; popularized by John F. Kennedy misquoting Dante (24 June 1963) http://www.bartleby.com/73/1211.html. Dante placed those who "non furon ribelli né fur fedeli" [were neither for nor against God] in a special region near the mouth of Hell; the lowest part of Hell, a lake of ice, was for traitors.
According to the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library & Museum http://www.jfklibrary.org/Research/Research-Aids/Ready-Reference/JFK-Quotations.aspx President Kennedy got his facts wrong. Dante never made this statement. The closest to what President Kennedy meant is in the Inferno where the souls in the ante-room of hell, who "lived without disgrace and without praise," and the coward angels, who did not rebel but did not resist the cohorts of Lucifer, are condemned to continually chase a banner that is forever changing course while being stung by wasps and horseflies.
See Canticle I (Inferno), Canto 3, vv 35-42 for the notion of neutrality and where JFK might have paraphrased from.
Misattributed
“There are times when the law jeopardizes those who obey it.”
Source: Pussy, King of the Pirates
Interview by Bill Moyers, Bill Moyers Journal, PBS, May 8, 2009. http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/05082009/transcript1.html
"Letter to St Bernard" in Illustrissimi (1976), p. 53
Context: Let me give an example. It is far away in time but a classic case … In 1815, the official French newspaper Le Moniteur, showed its readers how to follow Napoleon's progress: 'The brigand flees from the island of Elba '; 'The usurper arrives at Grenoble'; ' Napoleon enters Lyons'; 'The Emperor reaches Paris this evening'. What an amazing turnabout! This must not be compared with prudence, just as it isn't prudent to have a stubborn attitude and to take no account of what is obviously real or to become excessively rigid and zealously upright, more loyalist than the king, more papist than the pope.
This happens. Some people seize on an idea, then bury it and guard it for the rest of their lives, defending it jealously without ever examining it again, without ever trying to check what has become of it after all the rain and wind and storms of events and changes.
Those who travel in the stratosphere are in danger of not being prudent, when they are full of knowledge acquired purely from books. They can never get away from what is written, are always busy analyzing, pointing out subtleties, perpetually splitting hairs.
Life is quite another matter.