Skip to content
quotesby

About this quote

What does it mean?
Shared crises can unify groups, but geopolitical shifts can rapidly turn allies into enemies.
In plain terms
War united people, but the Cold War made friends suddenly avoid each other.
What can you take from it?
Political alignment changes can override personal relationships.

Where it applies

  • international relations
  • community divides
  • post-conflict society

Putting it to work

  • analyzing historical tension
  • understanding social distance

Questions to consider

  • How do political changes affect personal friendships?
  • Can shared history prevent future division?

Another view

The quote simplifies complex geopolitical history into personal interactions.

More from Doris Lessing

  1. The automatic reaction of practically any young person is, at once, against authority. That, I think, began in the First World War because of the trenches, and…

    Permalink to quote #44
  2. Why were the Europeans bothered about the Soviet Union at all? It was nothing to do with us. China had nothing to do with us. Why were we not building, without…

    Permalink to quote #46
  3. None of you ask for anything - except everything, but just for so long as you need it.

    Permalink to quote #43

Related quotes

  1. The awareness that we are all human beings together has become lost in war and through politics.

    Albert SchweitzerAlbert Schweitzer quote #5
  2. Regarding the imperial wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, 'Quote me as saying that that Imperial bastard will never set foot in Louisiana, and that when I call him a …

    Huey P. LongHuey P. Long quote #13
  3. I want to say a simple thing, that the dividing line exists not between Jordan and Israel, but between the proponents of peace and the opponents of peace.

    Hussein of JordanHussein of Jordan quote #14