For many as are the ills that are incident to the nature of man, we have ourselves invented more than those that nature lays upon us, by engendering wars and factions among ourselves. . . . Against these ills no one has ever protested; and people are not ashamed to weep over the calamities that have been fabricated by the poets, while they view complacently the real sufferings, the many terrible sufferings, that result from our state of war; and they are so far from feeling pity that they even rejoice more in each other’s sorrows than in their own blessings.8
Isocrates, 378 B.C. As appropriate today as it was ~2,400 years ago.
