Quotes Index
Power, Justice and Mercy Quotes (2)
More Quotes on Power, Justice and Mercy: (1) (2) (3) (4)
“…If by a liberal they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people- their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, their civil liberties, if that is what they mean by a ‘liberal’ then I am proud to be a liberal.” John F. Kennedy
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“As we must account for every idle word, so must we account for every idle silence.” Benjamin Franklin
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“At his best, man is the noblest of all animals; separated from law and justice he is the worst.” Aristotle
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“Back of the problem of race and color lies a greater problem and that is the fact that so many civilized person’s are willing to live in comfort even if the price of this is poverty, ignorance, and disease of the majority of their fellowmen, [and] that to maintain this privilege men have waged war until today war tends to become universal and continuous.” W.E.B. DuBois Biography - writer, teacher, Civil Rights spokesman, 1868-1963
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“Everything secret degenerates, even the administration of justice; nothing is safe that does not show how it can bear discussion and publicity.” Lord Acton - [John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton] (1834-1902), First Baron Acton of Aldenham - Source: Letter, 23 January 1861
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“Few are willing to brave the disapproval of their fellows, the censure of the colleagues, the wrath of their society. Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence. Yet it is the one essential, vital quality for those who seek to change a world that yields most painfully to change. Each time a person stands up for an idea, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, (s)he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.” Robert F. Kennedy
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“For the saddest words of tongue or pen these are, ‘It might have been’.” John Greenleaf Whittier
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“He who allows oppression, shares the crime.” Erasmus Darwin
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“I believe that justice is instinct and innate; the moral sense is as much a part of our constitution as that of feeling, seeing and hearing.” Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), 3rd US president, principal author of the Declaration of Independence
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“At his best, man is the noblest of all animals; separated from law and justice he is the worst.” Aristotle
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“Justice, sir, is the great interest of man on earth. It is the ligament which holds civilized beings and civilized nations together.” Daniel Webster
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“I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal’” Martin Luther King Jr.
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“I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward. It is not so desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right.” Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience, 1849
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“If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.” Bishop Desmond Tutu
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“I’m convinced that if we are to get on the right side for the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin to shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people; the giant triplets of racism, militarism, and economic exploitation are incapable of being conquered.” Martin Luther King Jr.
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“If a man hasn’t discovered something that he will die for, he isn’t fit to live.” Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
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“If a thief breaks into my house, burns and destroys my property, and kills or threatens to kill me, or those that are in it, and to “bind me in all cases whatsoever” to his absolute will, am I to suffer it?” Thomas Paine, The American Crisis
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“If the machine of government is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law.” Henry David Thoreau, On the Duty of Civil Disobedience, 1849
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“The civility of no race can be perfect whilst another race is degraded. It is a doctrine alike of the oldest and of the newest philosophy, that man is one, and that you cannot injure any member, without a sympathetic injury to all the members.” Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1844
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“If we do not maintain justice, justice will not maintain us.” Francis Bacon