Martha Gellhorn’s (1908-1998):Top Ten Conflict Tips

Taking my cue from my fellow blogger  ‘Creating Reciprocity’s’ excellent post on war correspondent Martha Gellhorn here:

http://creatingreciprocity.wordpress.com/2012/03/11/war-happens/

are my version of Martha’s Top Ten Conflict Tips derived from her quotes:

1. Citizenship is a tough occupation which obliges the citizen to make his own informed opinion and stand by it.
2. I know enough to know that no woman should ever marry a man who hated his mother 
3. Nothing is better for self-esteem than survival.
4. Life is not long at all, never long enough, but days are very long indeed.
5. The ends never justify the means because IT never ends
6. War happens to people, one by one. That is really all I have to say and it seems to me I have been saying it forever. Unless they are immediate victims, the majority of mankind behaves as if war was an act of God which could not be prevented; or they behave as if war elsewhere was none of their business. It would be a bitter cosmic joke if we destroy ourselves due to atrophy of the imagination
7. The only way I can pay back for what fate and society have handed me is to try, in minor totally useless ways, to make an angry sound against injustice
8. What the trees can do handsomely-greening and flowering, fading and then the falling of leaves-human beings cannot do with dignity, let alone without pain
9. Gradually I came to realize that people will more readily swallow lies than truth, as if the taste of lies was homey, appetizing: a habit.
10. The thing about war is that it has two sides, … The first is the absolute horror of it. The other thing about it is you meet absolutely marvelous people … brave and extraordinary people

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martha_Gellhorn

Martha: