"It is a fairly consistent law of humanity that men spend about half their lives at war"

"It is a fairly consistent law of humanity," he said, "that men spend about half their lives at war. A Frenchman, called Lapouge, calculated that from the year 1100 to the year 1500, England had been 207 years at war, and 212 years from 1500 to 1900. In France the corresponding figures would be 192 and 181 years."

Dr. O' Grady in The Silence of Colonel Bramble, by André Maurois