Wit & Attitude Quote by Crystal Eastman

Peace, Eastman suggests, is often just a cease-fire mistaken for harmony. The lion and lamb image borrows the familiar biblical fantasy of predators and prey coexisting, then punctures it with a lawyerly clause: it works only if both are asleep. Sleep here is the real condition of “unity” - not mutual understanding, but mutual inactivity. The moment one party “gets active,” the underlying power imbalance reasserts itself, and the danger isn’t abstract; it’s baked into the relationship.

Eastman’s intent is less poetic than diagnostic. As a Progressive Era lawyer and feminist organizer who fought for labor rights and civil liberties, she knew how often calls for “order” function as a sedative administered to the vulnerable. When the lamb is quiet, the lion can congratulate itself on its restraint; when the lamb organizes, strikes, votes, litigates, or simply refuses to play its assigned role, the lion suddenly remembers its teeth. The quote reads like a warning about respectable compromises that depend on one side staying docile.

The subtext is also about the politics of timing: movements are tolerated as long as they’re not moving. Eastman is skeptical of reconciliation narratives offered by those who benefit from the status quo, because “getting active” is the whole point of democratic agency. Her cynicism isn’t despairing; it’s strategic. Don’t confuse calm with justice. If your peace requires someone’s sleep, it’s not peace - it’s containment waiting to be disrupted.