'They've had a long time to think,' Paran murmured. 'Sometimes, that's all there's needed. The heart of wisdom is tolerance. I think.' - Steven Erikson

The heart of wisdom is tolerance.

Where resides the comforting knowledge of history's vast, cyclical sweep, the ebb and flow of wars and peace? Peace is the time of waiting for war. A time of preparation, or a time of willful ignorance, blind, blinkered and prattling behind secure walls.

And so, yet again, we crush the blossom in our hand, lift our gaze from the tumbling petals, and ask the world, ‘Where, then, is this beauty you promised?

Land, domination, pre-emptive attacks - all just excuses, mundane justifications that do nothing but disguise the simple distinction. They are not us. We are not them.