The universal problem into which modern life, as well as past life, rushes and embroils and rends itself, can only be dispersed by a universal means … - Henri Barbusse

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The universal problem into which modern life, as well as past life, rushes and embroils and rends itself, can only be dispersed by a universal means which reduces each nation to what it is in truth; which strips from them all the ideal of supremacy stolen by each of them from the great human ideal; a means which, raising the human ideal definitely beyond the reach of all those immoderate emotions, which shout together "Mine is the only point of view," gives it at last its divine unity. Let us keep the love of the motherland in our hearts, but let us dethrone the conception of Motherland. I will say what there is to say: I place the Republic before France. France is ourselves. The Republic is ourselves and the others. The general welfare must be put much higher than national welfare, because it is much higher.

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About Henri Barbusse

Henri Barbusse (17 May 1873 – 30 August 1935) was a French novelist, journalist and member of the French Communist Party.

Biography information from Wikiquote

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Additional quotes by Henri Barbusse

"Ah, my poor child, how far gone you are in your blindness! Why did you have me summoned?"

"I had hopes, I had hopes."

"Hopes? Hopes of what?"

"I do not know. The things we hope for are always the things we do not know."

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You will do away with the military frontiers, and those economic and commercial barriers which are still worse. Protection introduces violence into the expansion of labor; like militarism, it brings in a fatal absence of balance. You will suppress that which justifies among nations the things which among individuals we call murder, robbery, and unfair competition. You will suppress battles — not nearly so much by the direct measure of supervision and order that you will take as because you will suppress the causes of battle. You will suppress them chiefly because it is you who will do it, by yourself, everywhere, with your invincible strength and the lucid conscience that is free from selfish motives. You will not make war on yourself.

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