Justify Quotes - Page 10

• Man has an innate capacity for violence, but can only justify it in the name of justice.

  Ralph Steadman

  Men, Names, Justice

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• Every schoolchild knows that Columbus set out across the sea to prove that the world was round. But the belief in a spherical earth had a long and illustrious pedigree, as Columbus himself was well aware. . . . "The second reason that inspired the Admiral [Columbus] to launch his enterprise and helped justify his giving the name 'Indies' to the lands which he discovered was the authority of many learned men who said that one could sail westward from the western end of Africa and Spain to the eastern end of India, and that no great sea lay between."

  Ferdinand Columbus

  Men, Sea, Land

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• People will justify whatever for a good cause.

  Julie Taymor

  People, Causes, Good Causes

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• The inconsistency of the institution of domestic slavery with the principles of the Declaration of Independence was seen and lamented . . . no insincerity or hypocrisy can be fairly laid to their charge. Never from their lips was heard one syllable of attempt to justify the institution of slavery. They universally considered it as a reproach fastened upon them by the unnatural step-mother country and they saw that before the principles of the Declaration of Independence slavery, in common with every other mode of oppression, was destined sooner or later to be banished from the earth.

  John Quincy Adams

  Country, Mother, Hypocrisy

  "An Oration Delivered Before the Inhabitants of the Town of Newburyport". Book by John Quincy Adams (p.50), 1837.

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• In a world wounded by conflicts, where violence is justified in God's name, it's important to repeat that religion can never become a vehicle of hatred, it can never be used in God's name to justify violence.

  Pope Benedict XVI

  Names, Hatred, Religion

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• [Christ's] mission and work it is to help against sin and death, to justify and bring life. He has placed his help in baptism and the Sacrament [i.e., communion/Eucharist/Lord's supper], and incorporated it in the Word and preaching. To our eyes Baptism [capitalized in original] appears to be nothing more than ordinary water, and the Sacrament of Christ's body and blood simple bread and wine, like other bread and wine, and the sermon, hot air from a man's mouth. But we must not trust what our eyes see.

  Martin Luther

  Wine, Eye, Simple

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• Why, if 'tis dancing you would be, There's brisker pipes than poetry. Say, for what were hop-yards meant, Or why was Burton built on Trent? Oh many a peer of England brews Livelier liquor than the Muse, And malt does more than Milton can To justify God's ways to man. Ale, man, ale's the stuff to drink For fellows whom it hurts to think: Look into the pewter pot To see the world as the world's not.

  A. E. Housman

  Hurt, Drinking, Men

  Shropshire Lad (1896) no. 62

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• Journalists justify their treachery in various ways according to their temperaments. The more pompous talk about freedom of speech and ‘the public’s right to know’; the least talented talk about Art; the seemliest murmur about earning a living.

  Janet Malcolm

  Art, Freedom Of Speech, Earning

  Janet Malcolm (2011). “The Journalist And The Murderer”, p.14, Granta Books

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• It is faith alone that justifies, but faith that justifies can never be alone, though one is justified by faith alone, the faith which justifies is never in fact alone.

  N. T. Wright

  Interesting, Facts, Justified

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• I created 'The Westerner' because of anger - anger at never-miss sheriffs, always-right marshalls, whitewashed gunfighters ... anger at TV's quick-draw tin gods who stand behind a tin star or ten cents' worth of righteous anger and justify their skill and slaughter with a self-conscious grin or a minute's worth of bad philosophy.

  Sam Peckinpah

  Stars, Philosophy, Self

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• The end justifies the means. Sometimes you have to do the wrong thing to get the right result.

  Sebastian Fitzek

  Mean, Sometimes, Ends

  Sebastian Fitzek (2011). “Splinter: A gripping, chilling psychological thriller”, p.135, Atlantic Books Ltd

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• I would love for [Jesus] to come back because I would love for him to face what is happening and to really have some sort of perspective. In that same respect, I'm sure that Prophet Muhammad would be disgusted by what some people use his name to justify.

  Immortal Technique

  Jesus, Names, People

  Source: www.finalcall.com

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• Only he without sin can tell me if my means justify my ends.

  Jay-Z

  Mean, Sin, Ends

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• Because cheating is easier when we can justify our behavior, people often cheat in small amounts: We can come up with an excuse for stealing Post-It notes, but it is much more difficult to come up with an excuse for taking $10,000 from petty cash.

  Dan Ariely

  Cheating, People, Cash

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• In a world where success is the measure and justification of all things the figure of Him who was sentenced and crucified remains a stranger and is at best the object of pity. The world will allow itself to be subdued only by success. It is not ideas or opinions which decide, but deeds. Success alone justifies wrongs done With a frankness and off-handedness which no other earthly power could permit itself, history appeals in its own cause to the dictum that the end justifies the means The figure of the Crucified invalidates all thought which takes success for its standard.

  Dietrich Bonhoeffer

  Mean, Ideas, Done

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• We will be whatever they need us to be. Call us emo's, liars, and cheaters...tell people how awful we are and how little talent we have...do whatever it takes to make themselves feel better because at the end of the day, we are strong, we can take it. We don't need their approval to justify our lives. Each and every one of us has a fire that burns inside us and they can try like hell to put out that flame but as long as in our minds we know who we are meant to be, they don't stand a chance.

  Andy Biersack

  Strong, Emo, Liars

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• Racists have often used pseudoscience to justify their socially damaging views; watch these films to see how science, by replacing ignorance with knowledge, can undo that damage.

  James D. Watson

  Ignorance, Views, Damage

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• Patriotism is the principle that will justify the training of wholesale murderers.

  Leo Tolstoy

  Patriotism, Training, Principles

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• I have, for my own projected works and ideas, only the silliest and dewiest of hopes; no matter what, I am romantic enough or sentimental enough to wish to contribute something to life's fabric, to the world's beauty.... [S]imply to live does not justify existence, for life is a mere gesture on the surface of the earth, and death a return to that from which we had never been wholly separated; but oh to leave a trace, no matter how faint, of that brief gesture! For someone, some day, may find it beautiful!

  Frank O'Hara

  Beautiful, Ideas, Wish

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• I understood, not with my intellect but with my whole being, that no theories of the rationality of existence or of progress could justify such an act; I realized that even if all the people in the world from the day of creation found this to be necessary according to whatever theory, I knew that it was not necessary and that it was wrong. Therefore, my judgments must be based-on what is right and necessary and not on what people say and do; I must judge not according to progress but according to my own heart.

  Leo Tolstoy

  Heart, People, Judging

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• Nothing, nothing justifies terrorism.

  Mahmoud Darwish

  Terrorism

  "The poetry of loss" by Richard Silverstein, www.theguardian.com. August 14, 2008.

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• The 'natural' is not necessarily a 'human' value. Humanity has begun to transcend nature: we can no longer justify the maintenance of a discriminatory sex class system on grounds of its origins in nature. Indeed, for pragmatic reasons alone it is beginning to look as if we must get rid of it.

  Shulamith Firestone

  Sex, Class, Humanity

  "Shulamith Firestone obituary" by Julie Bindel, www.theguardian.com. September 6, 2012.

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• I understand that the end does not justify the means. And this should be a lasting value for democracy.

  Park Geun-hye

  Mean, Democracy, Doe

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• We stopped the fighting in 1991 on an agreement that Iraq would take steps to assure the world that it would not engage in further aggression and that it would destroy its weapons of mass destruction. It has refused to take those steps. That refusal constitutes a breach of the armistice which renders it void and justifies resumption of the armed conflict.

  Harry Reid

  Fighting, Mass Destruction, Agreement

  "Where did Syria's chemical weapons come from?" by Frank Salvato, www.breitbart.com. July 14, 2012.

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• You feign guilt in order to justify yourself.

  Jean Racine

  Order, Justice, Guilt

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