…the breeding-ground of all these tragedies [First World
War] is prejudice: prejudice of race and nation, of religion, of political
opinion; and the root cause of prejudice is blind imitation of the
past—imitation in religion, in racial attitudes, in national bias, in politics.
So long as this aping of the past persisteth, just so long will the foundations
of the social order be blown to the four winds, just so long will humanity be
continually exposed to direst peril.
- ‘Abdu’l-Baha (‘Selections from the
Writings of ‘Abdu’l-Baha’)
