The aim of civil war, like the aim of all war, is peace.

This [specialization] is the huge modern heresy of altering the human soul to fit its conditions, instead of altering human conditions to fit the human soul. If [soap factories] are really inconsistent with brotherhood, so much the worst for manufacturing soap, not for brotherhood. If civilization really cannot get on without democracy, so much the worse for civilization, not for democracy. Certainly, it would be far better to go back to village communes, if they really are communes. Certainly it would be better to do without soap rather than to do without society. Certainly, we would sacrifice all our wires, wheels, systems, specialties, physical science and frenzied finance for one half-hour of happiness such as has often come to us with comrades in a common tavern. I do not say the sacrifice will be necessary; I only say it will be easy.

The military spirit does not mean obeying the strongest and wisest man. On the contrary, the military spirit means, if anything, obeying the weakest and stupidest man, obeying him merely because he is a man, and not a thousand men. Submission to a weak man is discipline. Submission to a strong man is only servility.

Most common things will be found to be highly complicated. Some men of science do indeed get over the difficulty by dealing only with the easy part of it: thus, they will call first love the instinct of sex, and the awe of death the instinct of self-preservation. But this is only getting over the difficulty of describing a peacock [plume] by calling it blue. There is blue in it… The materialists analyze the easy part, deny the hard part, and go home to their tea.

For an aristocracy is always progressive; it is a form of going the pace. Their parties grow later and later at night; for they are trying to live tomorrow.