The line is not supposed to be taken at face value, and certainly not as a history lesson. In the movie Harry Lime was a criminal selling fake penicillin on the

The line is not supposed to be taken at face value, and certainly not as a history lesson. In the movie Harry Lime was a criminal selling fake penicillin on the black market thereby killing many people including children (he acknowledges as much, as far as I can remember). The quote is just him trying to justify this to his old friend who is horrified to discover his scheme. This is like when people take "you cant handle the truth" or "greed is good" or "to thine own self be true" at face value, completely ignoring the context around the lines. In any case it is a non sequitur. Losts of places throughout history had murder and bloodshed without producing the Italian Renaissance. (And Switzerland did not actually have peace for 500 years anyway although they did stay neutral during the world wars.). But Lime was not a historian, just a cynical criminal trying to justify stealing penicillin. It is a great line though.