If I solve my dispute with my neighbor by killing him, I have certainly solved the immediate dispute. If my neighbor was a scoundrel, then the world is no doubt better for his absence. But in killing my neighbor, though he may have been a terrible man who did not deserve to live, I have made myself a killer — and the life of my next neighbor is in greater peril than the life of the last. In making myself a killer I have destroyed the possibility of neighborhood.

Wendell Berry (b. 1934) American farmer, educator, poet, conservationist
“A Statement Against the War in Vietnam,” speech, University of Kentucky (10 Feb 1968) Full text.

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Added on 8-Feb-12 | Last updated 8-Feb-12
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