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Paladin's avatar

Enlightening, inspiring, and depressing

Dietrich Boenhoeffer

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laughlyn (johan eddebo)'s avatar

Not bad! But it's a bit older. And somewhat counter-intuitive considering who wrote it.

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les online's avatar

I was thinking Joseph Goebbels 'til you said 'a bit older'...

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laughlyn (johan eddebo)'s avatar

Why Goebbels? In line with "it's easy to get the people to support war" to paraphrase? But I don't suppose he'd imply there was a major moral issue here.

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les online's avatar

Not Karl Marx then, when he was younger ?

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laughlyn (johan eddebo)'s avatar

Interesting guess! Those Young Hegelian rascals would probably not have invoked God, but I think there's a reminiscence in style.

It's Voltaire, from Questions sur les Miracles (1765).

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Paladin's avatar

Very aphoristic. Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Nietzsche or even A. Lincoln would make such a statement, but w/o the word "atrocities" ( except for Tolstoy on Napoleon,) which dates it to post 19th century. So, pre Bonhoeffer , it's probably someone who was deeply affected by WW I and lived through Stalin and WW II. Churchill and Solzhenitsyn are candidates.

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laughlyn (johan eddebo)'s avatar

Nice! The English translation is 20th century, though, and exactly in line with what you say, the "atrocities" are not in the original text, which is from 1765.

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Paladin's avatar

"The English translation" of what by whom?

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laughlyn (johan eddebo)'s avatar

The quote at the end. It's Voltaire. :)

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