“This war has descended upon mankind as a curse and a warning. It is a curse inasmuch as it is brutalizing man on a scale hitherto unknown. All distinctions between combatants and noncombatants have been abolished. No one and nothing is to be spared. Lying has been reduced to an art. Britain was to defend small nationalities. One by one they have vanished, at least for the time being. It is also a warning. It is a warning that, if nobody reads the writing on the wall, man will be reduced to the state of the beast, whom he is shaming by his manners. I read the writing when the hostilities broke out. But I had not the courage to say the word. God has given me the courage to say it before it is too late.”
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Source: To Every Briton (1940).
About this quote
Sustained conflict corrodes the moral limits people swore they'd never cross — the line between fair and foul quietly disappears. Reading that drift early is one thing; finding the nerve to name it out loud, before it hardens into normal, is the harder part.
When to use it
- An escalating feud where both sides start using tactics they once openly condemned.
- A workplace where cutting corners spreads until no one remembers the original standard.
- Noticing a relationship turning cruel and speaking up about it before it settles into a routine.