Jean-Paul Sartre: When the rich fight the rich, it is the poor who die

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Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts

Nobel prize in literature recipients on peace and war

French writers on war and peace

Jean-Paul Sartre: They lift their heads and look up at the sky, the poisonous sky

Jean-Paul Sartre: When staging a massacre, all soldiers look alike

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Jean-Paul Sartre
From The Devil and the Good Lord (1951)
Translated by Kitty Black

ARCHBISHOP: No, no! No details! Especially, no details. A victory described in detail is indistinguishable from a defeat…

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THE WOMAN: Nasti! Nasti, the baker!

NASTI: What do you want?

THE WOMAN: Baker, my child is dead. You must be able to say why, you who know everything.

NASTI: Yes – I know.

HEINRICH: Nasti, I implore you, say nothing. Woe to those through whom evil comes to pass.

NASTI: He died because the rich burghers of our city revolted against the Archbishop, their very rich overlord. When the rich fight the rich, it is the poor who die.

THE WOMAN: Was it God’s will that they should wage this war?

NASTI: God has forbidden them to wage it.

THE WOMAN: This man says nothing happens except by the will of God.

NASTI: Nothing, except evil, which is born of the wickedness of man.

HEINRICH: Baker, you lie. You are confusing the false and the true in order to betray the souls of men.

NASTI: Dare you assert that God permits this mourning and this useless suffering? I say that God is innocent of our sins.