Justify Quotes - Page 27

• In the latter case it is often government that organizes the conquest, and religion that justifies it.

  Jared Diamond

  Government, Religion, Latter

  Jared Diamond (2017). “Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies”, p.233, W. W. Norton & Company

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• By exploring other worlds we safeguard this one. By itself, I think this fact more than justifies the money our species has spent in sending ships to other worlds. It is our fate to live during one of the most perilous and, at the same time, one of the most hopeful chapters in human history.

  Carl Sagan

  Fate, Thinking, Other Worlds

  "Cosmos: A Personal Voyage". Documentary (1990 Update). Episode 13: "Who Speaks for Earth?", 1990.

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• I don't spend a lot of time judging anyone I play. Even if their function in the script is to be the villain, I concentrate on what their perspective of the events is. Not even to justify them.

  Peter Sarsgaard

  Play, Perspective, Judging

  "It's more about the work than the money for Experimenter star Peter Sarsgaard". Interview with Pete Croatto, film.avclub.com. October 15, 2015.

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• The very word "secrecy" is repugnant in a free and open society; and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths and to secret proceedings. We decided long ago that the dangers of excessive and unwarranted concealment of pertinent facts far outweighed the dangers which are cited to justify it. Even today, there is little value in opposing the threat of a closed society by imitating its arbitrary restrictions. Even today, there is little value in insuring the survival of our nation if our traditions do not survive with it.

  John F. Kennedy

  Long Ago, People, Secret

  Address to the American Newspaper Publishers, delivered 27 April 1961, Waldorf Astoria Hotel, New York

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• People use ideas of non-duality as an escape from reality. It is very easy to say there is no winning and losing and justify the fact that you didn't do a very good job.

  Frederick Lenz

  Success, Jobs, Buddhism

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• To justify Christian morality because it provides a foundation of morality, instead of showing the necessity of Christian morality from the truth of Christianity, is a very dangerous inversion.

  T. S. Eliot

  Christian, Atheism, Foundation

  T. S. Eliot (2014). “The Idea of a Christian Society”, p.67, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Pascal makes no attempt in this most famous argument to show that his Roman Catholicism is true or probably true. The reasons which he suggests for making the recommended bet on his particular faith are reasons in the sense of motives rather than reasons in the sense of grounds. Conceding, if only for the sake of the present argument, that we can have no knowledge here, Pascal tries to justify as prudent a policy of systematic self-persuasion, rather than to provide grounds for thinking that the beliefs recommended are actually true.

  Antony Flew

  Thinking, Self, Atheism

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• I think you have to remember that Americans saw their purpose as so innately good that they could excuse the pain they would inflict on others to carry out those purposes. Because the purposes were so good, they would justify this pain we were inflicting on other people.

  Neil Sheehan

  Pain, Thinking, People

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• It is wrong for a man to say that he is certain of the objective truth of any proposition unless he can produce evidence which logically justifies that certainty. This is what Agnosticism asserts; and, in my opinion, it is all that is essential to Agnosticism. That which Agnostics deny and repudiate, as immoral, is the contrary doctrine, that there are propositions which men ought to believe without logically satisfactory evidence; and that reprobation ought to attach to the profession of disbelief in such inadequately supported propositions.

  Thomas Huxley

  Believe, Men, Atheism

  Thomas Henry Huxley (2012). “Lectures and Essays”, p.247, tredition

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• It goes with the passionate intensity and deep conviction of the truth of a religious belief, and of course of the importance of the superstitious observances that go with it, that we should want others to share it - and the only certain way to cause a religious belief to be held by everyone is to liquidate nonbelievers. The price in blood and tears that mankind generally has had to pay for the comfort and spiritual refreshment that religion has brought to a few has been too great to justify our entrusting moral accountancy to religious belief.

  Peter Medawar

  Spiritual, Religious, Blood

  Peter Brian Medawar (1996). “The Strange Case of the Spotted Mice and Other Classic Essays on Science”, p.210, Oxford University Press, USA

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• We justify the inequalities by saying some people are just better and smarter than others and the strong should survive and the poor can die off.

  Frans de Waal

  Strong, People, Poor

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• You say a good cause justifies any war; but I say a good war justifies any cause.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  War, Causes, Good War

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• The result justifies the deed.

  Ovid

  Deeds, Results

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• Whatever a 'superior' group has will be used to justify its superiority, and whatever an 'inferior' group has will be used to justify its plight. Black men were given poorly paid jobs because they were said to be 'stronger' than white men, while all women were relegated to poorly paid jobs because they were said to be 'weaker.

  Gloria Steinem

  Jobs, Men, White Man

  Gloria Steinem (2012). “Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions”, p.505, Open Road Media

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• Homosexuality is a cage in which you are trapped in an endless cycle of constantly wanting more - sexually - that you can never actually receive, constantly full of emptiness, trying to justify your twisted actions by politics and ‘feel good’ language.

  Michael Glatze

  Feel Good, Trying, Wanting More

  "My Ex-Gay Friend". Interview with Benoit Denizet-Lewis, www.nytimes.com. June 16, 2011.

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• Do not turn yourself from an end into a means-one does not justify the other.

  Lord Acton

  Mean, Doe, Ends

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• Lawyers from the NSA, as well as the UK's GCHQ, work very hard to search for loopholes in laws and constitutional protections that they can use to justify indiscriminate, dragnet surveillance operations that were at best unwittingly authorized by lawmakers.

  Edward Snowden

  Law, Nsa, Use

  "Snowden: NSA pressured EU into creating ‘European bazaar’ of spy networks". www.rt.com. March 7, 2014.

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• The refs are so confused themselves because there's so many rules. It's like, 'Oh my gosh I've never seen this many rules in my life.' And everybody's trying to govern this and justify that.

  Ray Lewis

  Confused, Trying, Refs

  "Ray Lewis Is Fed Up With Abusive Coaching". Interview with Ryan Bort, www.esquire.com. January 29, 2015.

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• Fat is a barrier, a bellicose statement to others that, to some, justifies hostility in kind. The world says to the fat person, "Your fatness is an affront to me, so we have the right to treat you as offensively as you appear." Fat is not merely viewed as another type of tissue, but as a diagnostic sign, a personal statement, and a measure of personality. Too little fat and we see you as being antisocial, fearful and sexless. Too much fat and we see you as slothful, stupid, and sexually hung up.

  Albert Ellis

  Stupid, Food, Personality

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• Because I'm a performer I can justify and sometimes sell the things about me that offend and shock the conventional world. I need to live life in the fast lane. I need to do things to excess. I need to go over the edge. I have an obligation to experience the things most people can't experience. The taboos. The things you're not supposed to know or do. That's part of my job. That's why I do it. I would probably do it anyway.

  Elizabeth Ashley

  Jobs, Live Life, People

  Elizabeth Ashley, Ross Firestone (1979). “Actress: Postcards from the Road”, Fawcett Books

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• One has no right to form ideals of people, and then, because they don't justify them, become bitter.

  Olive Schreiner

  People, Bitter, Form

  Olive Schreiner (1924). “The letters of Olive Schreiner, 1876-1920”, Hyperion Pr

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• It is often easier to justify one's self to others than to respond to the secret doubts that arise in one's own bosom.

  Margaret Oliphant

  Self, Doubt, Secret

  Margaret Oliphant Oliphant (1880). “He that will not when he may”

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• Give God the margin of eternity to justify Himself in, and the more we live and know of our own souls and of spiritual experience generally, the more we shall be convinced that we have to do with one who is good and just.

  Hugh Reginald Haweis

  God, Spiritual, Giving

  Hugh Reginald Haweis (1875). “Speech in Season”, p.354

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• Night and day I pondered until I saw the connection between the justice of God and the statement that 'the just shall live by his faith.' Then I grasped that the justice of God is that righteousness by which through grace and sheer mercy God justifies us through faith. Thereupon I felt myself to be reborn and to have gone through open doors into paradise.

  Martin Luther

  Night, Justice Of God, Doors

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• The desire for legitimate offspring is, in fact, according to the Catholic Church, the only motive which can justify sexual intercourse.

  Bertrand Russell

  Catholic, Church, Desire

  Bertrand Russell (2014). “Bertrand Russell's Best”, p.43, Routledge

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