"Wars always bring about a conservative reaction. They overwhelm and destroy patient and careful efforts to improve the condition of man. Nothing can be heard in the cannon's roar but the voice of might. All the safeguards laboriously built to preserve individual freedom and foster man's welfare are blown to pieces with shot and shell. In the presence of the wholesale slaughter of men the value of life is cheapened to the zero point. What is one life compared with the almost daily records of tens of thousands or more mowed down like so many blades of grass in a field? Building up a conception of the importance of life is a matter of slow growth and education; and the work of generations is shattered and laid waste by machine guns and gases on a larger scale than ever before. Great wars have been followed by an unusually large number of killings between private citizens and individuals. These killers have become accustomed to thinking in terms of slaying and death toward all opposition, and these have been followed in turn by the most outrageous legal penalties and a large increase in the number of executions by the state. It is perfectly clear that hate begets hate, force is met with force, and cruelty can become so common that its contemplation brings pleasure, when it should produce pain."

Clarence Darrow Politics See all quotes by Clarence Darrow →

React to this quote

More by Clarence Darrow

“I have suffered from being misunderstood, but I would have suffered a hell of a lot more if I had been understood.”

“I was truly sorry for Mr. Bryan. But I consoled myself by thinking of the years through which he had busied himself tormenting intelligent professors with impudent questions about their faith, and seeking to arouse the ignoramuses and bigots to drive them out of their positions.”

“The Clarence Darrow Home Page”

“As long as the world shall last there will be wrongs, and if no man objected and no man rebelled, those wrongs would last forever. The objector and the rebel who raises his voice against what he believes to be the injustice of the present and the wrongs of the past is the one who hunches the world along.”

“Pensions are the favors of the powerful, and dangerous to any great intellect. It is only here and there down throughout the ages that a Voltaire is born who does not fall a victim to their blandishments.”

“I had grown tired of standing in the lean and lonely front line facing the greatest enemy that ever confronted man — public opinion.”

Resonant Thoughts

"Perhaps we might reverse the idea and state that it is only when third subplane matter of a certain percentage is contained in the vehicles, that the Personality as a conscious whole recognises and ob…"

— Alice Bailey

Literature1880–1949

#mind

"It is no surprise that the is thrilled about Khizr Khan’s “brutal repudiation of Donald Trump,” even though Khan, not quite accurately, claims that Trump wants to “ban us from this country.” Trump has…"

— Robert Spencer

Literature1889–1969

#philosophy

"The trial of Jesus of Nazareth, the trial and rehabilitation of Joan of Arc, any one of the witchcraft trials in Salem during 1691, the Moscow trials of 1937 during which Stalin destroyed all of the f…"

— Katherine Anne Porter

Literature1890–1980

#truth

"Soon after the war- Jim Gavin told me to our amusement- the commandant of the Air War College, Major General Orvil A. Anderson, introduced him as a guest speaker. Anderson was a pioneer flier and ball…"

— William Westmoreland

Military1914–2005

#time