Rasczak's lesson at the beginning of the film, while he is still teaching the history/philosophy class, is one of the best sequences of dialogue ever delivered in cinema. Mostly because it is true. >"I was not making fun of you personally; I was heaping scorn on an inexcusably silly idea — a practice I shall always follow. >Anyone who clings to the historically untrue and thoroughly immoral doctrine that violence never settles anything I would advise to conjure up the ghosts of Napoleon Bonaparte and the Duke of Wellington and let them debate it. The ghost of Hitler could referee and the jury might well be the Dodo, the Great Auk, and the Passenger Pigeon. Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than has any other factor, and the contrary opinion is wishful thinking at its worst. >Breeds that forget this basic truth have always paid for it with their lives and their freedoms." This is the extended quote from the book.