The pursuit of nonviolence in the international field is like the pursuit of politico-economic utopia--a dream. It is laudably idealistic but, unfortunately, it is also ill-founded. The pacifism which preaches a total and absolute nonviolence, applicable all the time and in all situations, fails to recognize what is written all over the universe--the law of opposites. It is their balance which holds all things in the world, all creatures in Nature, together. In human life their conflict breeds violence, and their recession, peace. War can change its form, can lose its brutality, can be lifted to a higher level altogether where words displace weapons, and this will certainly happen. But war at worst, friction at best, will not disappear so long as the ego in man with its negative emotions is his ruler.
-- Notebooks Category 6: Emotions and Ethics > Chapter 7 : Miscellaneous Ethical Issues > # 39
