Power can win the body count but it cannot win this war. Because the enemy is not human. This is a war against a malicious spirit. Only fools attempt to defeat a spirit with guns and rockets and bombs.
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- The speaker claims that military force cannot defeat a malicious spirit, implying a moral or ideological war requires different tools.
- In plain terms
- Guns cannot defeat a malicious spirit, only a fool would try.
- What can you take from it?
- Moral conflicts cannot be solved with physical force alone.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- What tools defeat a malicious spirit?
- Why do we prefer weapons over ideas?
Another view
The concept of a malicious spirit is abstract and hard to act on.
More from Gerry Spence
I dream of a time when the people will retake their airways and use them to achieve a voice to rediscover democracy, and to see the divine potential of man.
Permalink to quote #24 The goal of a free nation is to reveal by example the enlightened possibilities of the human race, not to wield its power of destruction and death over the hel…
Permalink to quote #26 We cannot, as a people, remain mute and free.
Permalink to quote #23
Related quotes
If you get down and you quarell everyday, you're saying prayers to the devil, I say.
Bob MarleyBob Marley quote #40 I find war detestable but those who praise it without participating in it even more so.
Romain RollandRomain Rolland quote #1 'I renounce war for its consequences, for the lies it lives on and propagates, for the undying hatred it arouses, for the dictatorships it puts in place of dem…
Harry Emerson FosdickHarry Emerson Fosdick quote #1