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About this quote

What does it mean?
War persists as long as human nature remains flawed. Cooperation and arbitration are ideals, but conflict endures until humanity changes.
In plain terms
Wars will continue as long as humans are flawed.
What can you take from it?
Peace requires fundamental change in human behavior.

Where it applies

  • international relations
  • conflict resolution
  • philosophy

Putting it to work

  • diplomacy
  • arbitration
  • conflict prevention

Questions to consider

  • Can human nature ever change?
  • What causes war?

Another view

Human nature is difficult to change fundamentally.

More from Rutherford B. Hayes

  1. Do not let your bachelor ways crystallize so that you can't soften them when you come to have a wife and a family of your own.

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  2. The unrestricted competition so commonly advocated does not leave us the survival of the fittest. The unscrupulous succeed best in accumulating wealth.

    Permalink to quote #61
  3. The progress of society is mainly ... the improvement in the condition of the workingmen of the world.

    Permalink to quote #58

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