As we get further away from the England of the nineteenth century, and see it separated from us by the great gulf of the war, we shall perhaps be bet… - Gilbert Murray

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As we get further away from the England of the nineteenth century, and see it separated from us by the great gulf of the war, we shall perhaps be better able to see it as it really was, to appreciate its extraordinary greatness, its peculiar faults and flaws, and to a remarkable degree its unity. Beyond question it was a very great age indeed. For Great Britain especially it marked the zenith of national success, the widest expansion over the world of British government, British commerce, British political thought, British morals, philosophy, science, poetry and prose literature. It was a time when Indian rajahs and Chinese mandarins learnt to play cricket and read Macaulay, as now they are learning baseball and frequenting the movies.

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About Gilbert Murray

George Gilbert Aimé Murray, OM, FBA (2 January 1866 – 20 May 1957) was an Australian-born British classical scholar and public intellectual, with connections in many spheres. He was an outstanding scholar of the language and culture of Ancient Greece, perhaps the leading authority in the first half of the twentieth century. He is the basis for the character of Adolphus Cusins in his friend George Bernard Shaw's play Major Barbara, and also appears as the chorus figure in Tony Harrison's play Fram. He was a prominent humanist, and served as President of the Ethical Union (now Humanists UK) from 1929-1930 and was a delegate at the inaugural World Humanist Congress in 1952 which established Humanists International.

Also Known As

Birth Name: George Gilbert Aimé Murray
Alternative Names: George Gilbert Aime Murray Sir Gilbert Murray George Gilbert Murray G. G. Murray Gilbert Aimé Murray
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This service of civilization is our true work; the occupation that gives meaning to life. We need peace, inward and outward, because peace leaves us free to attend to it; while war—or, indeed, any violent hatred—interrupts and wrecks and perverts.

[I]f we lay at all too much stress on the need of warlike preparations for quelling the peace-breaker, we find ourselves on a very slippery slope. ... It is all a perpetuation of war, not a planting of peace: a hardening in old error, not a change of heart. One of the most advanced French advocates of the League once said to me that the true guarantee of peace in Europe was a strong French Army and a strong British Navy. The sort of man who thinks that is the sort of man who ought never to be allowed to touch international affairs. Remove that implication. Accept freely, and put into practice, the principles of genuine and equal Disarmament, and then your preparation for Sanctions is perfectly right. To put crushing Sanctions in the hands of two particular Powers, or of an alliance of certain highly armed Powers, would be a crime against humanity.

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It seems to me important that liberal feeling in England should keep fully in touch with the war...for the sake of the peace settlement afterwards. ... If we win, as seems on the whole probable, we must do our very best for a generous treatment of Germany. ... I think we ought also to go for a strengthening of the Concert and reducing armaments by treaty. Anyhow, whether it is practicable or not, it is enormously important not to have a mere grabbing or jingo settlement.

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