“The chief reason warfare is still with us is neither a secret death-wish of the human species, nor an irrepressible instinct of aggression, nor, finally and more plausibly, the serious economic and social dangers inherent in disarmament, but the simple fact that no substitute for this final arbiter in international affairs has yet appeared on the political scene.”
—Hannah Arendt (1906–1975)
“The purpose of punishment is to improve those who do the punishing—that is the final recourse of those who support punishment.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“The final event to himself has been, that as he rose like a rocket, he fell like the stick.”
—Thomas Paine (1737–1809)