In every man the memory of the struggles and the heroes of the past is alive. But these memories are not incompatible with the desire for peace in the future.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
The past is prophetic in that it asserts loudly that wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows.
Memories are the key not to the past, but to the future.
But the memory of war weighs undiminished upon the people's minds. That is because deeper than material wounds, moral wounds are smarting, inflicted by the so- called peace treaties.
The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting.
The longing for peace is rooted in the hearts of all men. But the striving, which at present has become so insistent, cannot lay claim to such an ambition as leading the way to eternal peace, or solving all disputes among nations.
I know not why there is such a melancholy feeling attached to the remembrance of past happiness, except that we fear that the future can have nothing so bright as the past.
The future will use and dispose of the memories of people that we knew as history sees fit.
Like Jesus, every human being has enough memories in his past to occupy his time and thoughts continually. It is not the remembrance of these incidents but the reliving of them that creates havoc in our souls.
There is always tension between the possibilities we aspire to and our wounded memories and past mistakes.
Let the past be content with itself, for man needs forgetfulness as well as memory.