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- This article is about the political class of conflict, for the 2024 film, see Civil War
A civil war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies. The term is a calque of Latin bellum civile which was used to refer to the various civil wars of the Roman Republic in the 1st century BC.
- Amongst all other vices there is none I hate more than cruelty, both by nature and judgement, as the extremest of all vices. ... I live in an age wherein we abound with incredible examples of this vice, through the licentiousness of our civil and intestine wars; And read all ancient Stories, be they never so tragical, you shall find none to equal those, we daily see practised.
- Montaigne, Essayes (tr. John Florio)
- RICHMOND:
England hath long been mad, and scarr'd herself;
The brother blindly shed the brother's blood,
The father rashly slaughter'd his own son,
The son, compell'd, been butcher to the sire:
All this divided York and Lancaster,- Shakespeare, Richard III, V, 5
- The Civil Wars, the common purgative,
Which always use to make the nation thrive,- Daniel Defoe, The True-born Englishman (1701)
- I can assure you that no kingdom has ever had as many civil wars as the kingdom of Christ.
- Montesquieu, Persian Letters (tr. C. J. Betts)
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