The Wisdom Letter #179

5 quotes from Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961)

✹ For today's Wisdom Letter, we have carefully curated five bite-sized quotes from the American novelist and short story writer, Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961).

Quote № 01:

“War is no longer made by simply analysed economic forces if it ever was. War is made or planned now by individual men, demagogues and dictators who play on the patriotism of their people to mislead them into a belief in the great fallacy of war when all their vaunted reforms have failed to satisfy the people they misrule.”

— Ernest Hemingway

Quote № 02:

“The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry.”

— Ernest Hemingway

Quote № 03:

“An aggressive war is the great crime against everything good in the world. A defensive war, which must necessarily turn to aggressive at the earliest moment, is the necessary great counter-crime. But never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime. Ask the infantry and ask the dead.”

— Ernest Hemingway

Quote № 04:

“There is no lonelier man in death, except the suicide, than that man who has lived many years with a good wife and then outlived her. If two people love each other there can be no happy end to it.”

— Ernest Hemingway

Quote № 05:

“They wrote in the old days that it is sweet and fitting to die for ones country. But in modern war there is nothing sweet nor fitting in your dying. You will die like a dog for no good reason.”

— Ernest Hemingway

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✺ Today’s Questions

Three philosophical questions to foster your curiosity:

Question № 01:

How do demagogues exploit patriotism to justify war, and what measures can societies take to prevent being misled into unnecessary conflict?

Question № 02:

In what ways does the lived experience of soldiers and the dead challenge the narratives of honor and glory often used to justify war?

Question № 03:

If love inevitably leads to loss, can the joy and connection it brings justify the pain that follows, or does this inevitability make it a tragic endeavor?

✽ Thank you for reading today’s Wisdom Letter.

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