Injustices Quotes
More Injustices Quotes
What determinate events is, beside national, dynastic and particular egoism, the instinct of domination and conquest, in one word, forceBold text. Judging by the history of humanity, harms that men have had to suffer, harms ("les maux", Fr.) that men have to suffer by their nature are minute in comparison ("en regard", Fr.) to these they inflict to each others. The most fantastic imagination might not ("ne saurait", Fr.) fabricate ("forger", Fr) some cruelties, injustices and perfidies (or perfidiousnesses) that men have not exceeded in practice.
african spir— p. 55 (Words of a Sage : Selected thoughts of African Spir (1937))
To disarm the strong and arm the weak would be to change the social order which it's my job to preserve. Justice is the means by which established injustices are sanctioned.
Thibault— 1901 Crainquebille.
...poets are sensitive to the challenge 'What is the moral justification of poetry?' because they are conscious of the intrinsic goodness of poetry. Goody-goody humanitarian causes draw them easily into membership by making them wince at the notion of all the injustices prevalent in the world of physical consciousness. Let it be declared as clearly as possible that the goodness of poetry is not moral goodness, the goodness of temporal action, but the goodness of thought, the loving exercise of the will in the pursuit of truth.
laura riding— Laura Riding and Robert Graves from "Poetry and Politics", reprinted in The Common Asphodel (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1949)
Sometimes great injustices may be inflicted on the minority when the majority is in the pursuit of a great and just cause.
Paul Robeson— To his son Paul Jr regarding the execution of his friend Ignaty Kazahov, as quoted in "The Undiscovered Paul Robeson" (2001) by Paul Robeson Jr, p. 306
Ils ne se servent de la pensée que pour autoriser leurs injustices, et n'emploient les paroles que pour déguiser leurs pensées.
voltaire— Men use thought only as authority for their injustice, and employ speech only to conceal their thoughts.Dialogue xiv, Le Chapon et la Poularde (l763); reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
The prime minister of Canada had to apologise to the Indians… the other day the prime minister of Australia apologised [for historical injustices]. There is something useful in that apology. Although I wasn't involved during the 2007-2008 [crisis]… I say I apologise for what has happened as a leader of this nation something has gone wrong.
— Mr. Kiplagat, quoted on BBC News, "Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto named in Kenya TRJC report", May 22, 2013.
In any nonviolent campaign there are four basic steps: collection of the facts to determine whether injustices exist; negotiation; self purification; and direct action.
— Martin Luther King, Jr. (1963) Letter from a Birmingham Jail
Ils ne se servent de la pensée que pour autoriser leurs injustices, et emploient les paroles que pour déguiser leurs pensées .
— Men use thought only to justify their wrong doings, and employ speech only to conceal their thoughts.
— Voltaire, Dialogue XIV, Le Chapon et la Poularde (1766).
I can imagine no man who will look with more horror on the End than a conscientious revolutionary who has, in a sense sincerely, been justifying cruelties and injustices inflicted on millions of his contemporaries by the benefits which he hopes to confer on future generations.
— C. S. Lewis, The World's Last Night (1952)
I hardly sustain myself beneath the weight of white men's blood that I have shed. The whites provoked the war; their injustices, their indignities to our families, the cruel, unheard of and wholly unprovoked massacre at Fort Lyon ... shook all the veins which bind and support me. I rose, tomahawk in hand, and I have done all the hurt to the whites that I could.
sitting bull— Recorded by the Jesuit priest Pierre-Jean De Smet after a council with Sitting Bull on June 19, 1868. Published in Utley, Robert M. The Lance and the Shield. New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1993. p. 79-80.
