Justify Quotes - Page 16

• There are times when the end justifies the means. But when you build an argument based on a whole series of such times, you may find that you've constructed an entire philosophy of evil." --Luke Skywalker

  Aaron Allston

  Philosophy, Mean, Evil

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• My feelings are not God. God is God. My feelings do not define truth. God’s word defines truth. My feelings are echoes and responses to what my mind perceives. And sometimes - many times - my feelings are out of sync with the truth. When that happens - and it happens every day in some measure - I try not to bend the truth to justify my imperfect feelings, but rather, I plead with God: Purify my perceptions of your truth and transform my feelings so that they are in sync with the truth.

  John Piper

  Echoes, Feelings, Perception

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• First, individual rights cannot be sacrificed for the sake of the general good, and second, the principles of justice that specify these rights cannot be premised on any particular vision of the good life. What justifies the rights is not that they maximize the general welfare or otherwise promote the good, but rather that they comprise a fair framework within which individuals and groups can choose their own values and ends, consistent with a similar liberty for others.

  Michael Sandel

  Good Life, Rights, Justice

  Michael J. Sandel (2005). “Public Philosophy: Essays on Morality in Politics”, p.151, Harvard University Press

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• Coffee justifies the existence of the word 'aroma'.

  Glen Duncan

  Coffee, Aroma, Existence

  Glen Duncan (2007). “I, Lucifer: Finally, the Other Side of the Story”, p.92, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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• The ends do not justify the means. If our actions will bring harm to others, even in the service of some 'good,' they are almost certainly deluded. If our actions do not come from a kind heart, from loving courage and compassion, they are deluded. If they are based on a distinction between 'us' and 'them,' they stem from delusion. Only to the extent that we act from the wisdom of no separation, understanding how we are woven together, will our intention bring benefit.

  Jack Kornfield

  Heart, Mean, Compassion

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• Hunger justifies the middle classes.

  Julien Torma

  Class, Hunger, Middle

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• I think in general the ends do not justify the means.

  Howard Dean

  Mean, Thinking, Ends

  "Dean's 'Urban Legend'". www.nytimes.com. October 13, 2003.

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• When I write, I actually hear the characters speak. Almost like an actor - even though I'm not an actor at all - getting into their truth and to justify what they do.

  Kareem Mortimer

  Writing, Character, Speak

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• Feelings of bitterness and dissatisfaction feed upon themselves and give place to thoughts and acts of unkindness, criticism, and eventually even hatred. Criticism is often motivated by a desire to rationalize one's own shortcomings and to justify termination of sacred marriage covenants.

  Richard G. Scott

  Giving, Hatred, Feelings

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• It frequently happens that offenses are committed when the offender is not aware of it. Something he has said or done is misconstrued or misunderstood. The offended one treasures in his heart the offense, adding to it such other things as might give fuel to the fire and justify his conclusions.

  Spencer W. Kimball

  Heart, Fire, Giving

  Spencer W. Kimball (1982). “The Teachings of Spencer W. Kimball, Twelfth President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints”

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• The worst part is not in making a mistake but in trying to justify it, instead of using it as a heaven-sent warning of our mindlessness or our ignorance.

  Santiago Ramon y Cajal

  Mistake, Ignorance, Heaven Sent

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• While society cannot provide employment for its members, the production/work/income nexus has to be abandoned as a justification for our present parsimony to the unemployed. An assumption cannot be used to justify making second-class citizens of those who are unfortunate enough to constitute living proof of the inaccuracy of that assumption.

  Bob Hawke

  Leadership, Class, Income

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• If God gives you gifts you must use them to justify your life. It is what the Greeks called divine discontent that drives you.

  Mary Fairfax

  Wisdom, Giving, Greek

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• We ought not to schismatize on either men or measures. Principles alone can justify that.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Men, Principles, Politics

  Thomas Jefferson (2010). “The Works of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence and Papers, 1808-1816”, p.193, Cosimo, Inc.

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• Once we ask why it should be that all human beings - including infants, the intellectually disabled, criminal psychopaths, Hitler, Stalin, and the rest - have some kind of dignity or worth that no elephant, pig, or chimpanzee can ever achieve, we see that this question is as difficult to answer as our original request for some relevant fact that justifies the inequality of humans and other animals.

  Peter Singer

  Animal, Pigs, Elephants

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• When a man is afraid and accedes to fear, he will always find arguments to justify his own surrender.

  Natan Sharansky

  Fear, Men, Surrender

  Natan Sharansky (1998). “Fear No Evil”, p.292, PublicAffairs

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• Here is a law which is above the King and which even he must not break. This reaffirmation of a supreme law and its expression in a general charter is the great work of Magna Carta; and this alone justifies the respect in which men have held it

  Winston Churchill

  Kings, Men, Expression

  Sir Winston Churchill, Timothy Baker (1968). “The island race”

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• Anyway that's a large part of what economics is - people arbitrarily, or as a matter of taste, assigning numerical values to non-numerical things. And then pretending that they haven't just made the numbers up, which they have. Economics is like astrology in that sense, except that economics serves to justify the current power structure, and so it has a lot of fervent believers among the powerful

  Kim Stanley Robinson

  Powerful, Numbers, Astrology

  Kim Stanley Robinson (2003). “Red Mars”, p.314, Spectra

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• No cause can justify the abuse of human rights.

  Irene Khan

  Rights, Abuse, Causes

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• Every lie has 2 parts - the lie we tell others and the one we tell ourselves to justify it.

  George Deukmejian

  Lying

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• The brute necessity of believing something so long as life lasts does not justify any belief in particular.

  George Santayana

  Life, Believe, Long

  George Santayana, Martin A. Coleman (2009). “The Essential Santayana: Selected Writings”, p.60, Indiana University Press

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• ... the United States, for generations, has sustained two parallel but opposed states of mind about military atrocities and human rights: one of U.S. benevolence, generally held by the public, and the other of ends-justify-the-means brutality sponsored by counterinsurgency specialists. Normally the specialists carry out their actions in remote locations with little notice in the national press. That allows the public to sustain its faith in a just America, while hard-nosed security and economic interests are still protected in secret.

  Robert Parry

  Military, War, Mean

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• Far from being reluctantly propelled into hostilities by popular war fever, leaders incite that fever in order to gather support for their war policies. Thereby do they attempt to distract the public from pressing domestic matters, serve the overseas interests of U.S. investors, justify gargantuan military budgets, and present themselves as great leaders.

  Michael Parenti

  Military, War, Order

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• Optimism, then, is a fact within my own heart. But as I look out upon life, my heart meets no contradiction. The outward world justifies my inward universe of good.

  Helen Keller

  Heart, Optimism, Facts

  Helen Keller (2012). “Optimism”, p.7, Simon and Schuster

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• Politics can be relatively fair in the breathing spaces of history; at its critical turning points there is no other rule possible than the old one, that the end justifies the means.

  Arthur Koestler

  Mean, Breathing Space, History

  Arthur Koestler (2015). “Darkness at Noon”, p.98, Simon and Schuster

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