Justify Quotes - Page 29

• History, which undertakes to record the transactions of the past, for the instruction of future ages, would ill deserve that honourable office if she condescended to plead the cause of tyrants, or to justify the maxims of persecution.

  Edward Gibbon

  Past, Tyrants, History

  Edward Gibbon (1826). “The history of the decline and fall of the Roman empire”, p.18

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• Today, criminal justice functions and justifies itself only by this perpetual reference to something other than itself, by this unceasing reinscription in non-juridical systems.

  Michel Foucault

  Justice, Criminals, Today

  Michel Foucault (2012). “Discipline & Punish: The Birth of the Prison”, p.19, Vintage

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• I woke up one day and thought: I want to write a book about the history of my body. I could justify talking about my mother because it was in her body that my body began.

  Paul Auster

  Mother, Book, Writing

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• Being honest when you're dealing with others is easier to do because your honesty is on the table for all to view...Being honest with yourself is more difficult because you only have to justify it in private where no one can see it.

  Jeffrey Gitomer

  Honesty, Views, Tables

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• When the throne of God is overturned, the rebel realizes that it is now his own responsibility to create the justice, order, and unity that he sought in vain within his own condition, and in this way to justify the fall of God. Then begins the desperate effort to create, at the price of crime and murder if necessary, the dominion of man.

  Albert Camus

  Fall, Responsibility, Men

  Albert Camus (2012). “The Rebel: An Essay on Man in Revolt”, p.25, Vintage

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• Even as rigorous a determinist as Karl Marx, who at times described the social behaviour of the bourgeoisie in terms which suggested a problem in social physics, could subject it at other times to a withering scorn which only the presupposition of moral responsibility could justify.

  Reinhold Niebuhr

  Responsibility, Bourgeoisie, Behaviour

  Reinhold Niebuhr (2012). “An Interpretation of Christian Ethics”, p.81, Westminster John Knox Press

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• What amazes me is how far some people will go to justify their behavior to themselves, just to preserve that self-perception.

  Christopher Golden

  Self, People, Perception

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• Evolution has no moral direction. An evolutionary understanding of human nature can explain the differing intuitions we have when we are faced with an individual rather than with a mass of people, or with people close to us rather than with those far away, but it does not justify those feelings.

  Peter Singer

  People, Understanding, Feelings

  Peter Singer (2010). “The Life You Can Save: How to play your part in ending world poverty”, p.61, Pan Macmillan

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• [W]e think the very term 'value investing' is redundant. What is 'investing' if it is not the act of seeking value at least sufficient to justify the amount paid? Consciously paying more for a stock than its calculated value -- in the hope that it can soon be sold for a still-higher price -- should be labeled speculation (which is neither illegal, immoral nor -- in our view -- financially fattening).

  Warren Buffett

  Thinking, Views, Investing

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• You must all know half a dozen people at least who are no use in this world, who are more trouble than they are worth. Just put them there and say Sir, or Madam, now will you be kind enough to justify your existence? If you can't justify your existence, if you're not pulling your weight in the social boat, if you're not producing as much as you consume or perhaps a little more, then, clearly, we cannot use the organizations of our society for the purpose of keeping you alive, because your life does not benefit us and it can't be of very much use to yourself.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Organization, People, Doe

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• The mind reels at the multiplication of books intended to justify the author's promotion from assistant to associate professor.

  C. Northcote Parkinson

  Education, Book, Mind

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• Now when you get something like the Apocalypse of John, when this avenging God is going to have blood to the bridle bits for 200 miles, I think that's venous, I don't think that's justice, I don't think that's Jesus, and I don't think it's the God of Jesus. That's the killer God, and the trouble with the killer God is that it justifies us doing the same, and in fact it invites us maybe to start with a bit.

  John Dominic Crossan

  Jesus, Thinking, Blood

  Source: www.abc.net.au

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• General welfare is a general condition - maybe sound currency is general welfare, maybe markets, maybe judicial system, maybe a national defense, but this is specific welfare. This justifies the whole welfare state - the military industrial complex, the welfare to foreigners, the welfare state that imprisons our people and impoverishes our people and gives us our recession.

  Ron Paul

  Military, People, Giving

  "Mike Huckabee Explains 2012 Decision; Rep. Ron Paul on His Presidential Bid; Sens. Durbin, Kyl Talk Immigration Reform, Debt Ceiling". "Fox News Sunday With Chris Wallace", www.foxnews.com. May 15, 2011.

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• In the 17 years since I graduated from this great College of Law, I have seen that, for many of us, it becomes increasingly easy to rationalize our actions in the name of expediency when facing difficult decisions-to choose a path where the ends justify the means. I want to ask you to challenge Machiavelli's philosophy. I want to humbly suggest that you be the guardians of a more complicated truth: that the means are as important-and sometimes even more important-than the ends.

  Beau Biden

  Philosophy, Mean, College

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• To believe that man's aggressiveness or territoriality is in the nature of the beast is to mistake some men for all men, contemporary society for all possible societies, and, by a remarkable transformation, to justify what is as what needs must be; social repression becomes a response to, rather than a cause of, human violence. Pessimism about man serves to maintain the status quo. It is a luxury for the affluent, a sop to the guilt of the politically inactive, a comfort to those who continue to enjoy the amenities of privilege.

  Leon Eisenberg

  Mistake, Believe, Men

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• At times, our circumstances call for us to make critical choices to keep our covenants or to compromise them. Covenants should never be compromised, even when at the moment some circumstances might seem to justify it.

  L. Lionel Kendrick

  Choices, Covenant, Might

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• Film is like a personal diary, a notebook or a monologue by someone who tries to justify himself before a camera.

  Jean-Luc Godard

  Notebook, Trying, Cameras

  Jean Luc Godard (1967). “Le Petit soldat: screenplay”

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• I think comedy directors tend to feel a need to justify the bad behavior, and I just never think that. I like bad behavior, I've always liked bad behavior, I'm a fan of bad behavior, and I don't think you have to justify bad behavior.

  Todd Phillips

  Thinking, Directors, Fans

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• We do the same thing in our own lives, embracing information that supports what we already prefer or vindicates choices we previously made.After all, it feels better to justify our opinions rather than challenge them, to contemplate only the pros and relegate the cons to the back of our minds. However, if we want to make the most of choice, we have to be willing to make ourselves uncomfortable. The question is, if we are willing, how exactly do we go about fortifying ourselves against these biases?

  Sheena Iyengar

  Feel Better, Choices, Support

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• If you can justify killing to eat meat, you can justify the conditions of the ghetto. I cannot justify either one.

  Dick Gregory

  Ghetto, Meat, Killing

  Dick Gregory (1968). “The shadow that scares me”

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• In Crash, you've got a pathological cop who at the end justifies police brutality. He tells the naïve, young cop that you're going to end up the same as him. He's the most sympathetic character in the movie. So, the naïve cop ends up murdering this Black kid and tries to cover up the evidence. It sort of justifies police brutality and the planting of evidence which is what happened in the O.J. Simpson case.

  Ishmael Reed

  Character, Kids, Police

  Source: www.counterpunch.org

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• I don't think the war is going to end, but the war is just going to change. So we talk about change all the time, well that's what's going to change. You know, we tried having an idiot try and justify the war and give us these rationales and now we're going to have a very articulate and capable black man say it.

  Immortal Technique

  War, Men, Thinking

  Source: www.hiphopcanada.com

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• The chicken noticed that the farmer came every day to feed it. It predicted that the farmer would continue to bring food every day. Inductivists think that the chicken had "extrapolated" its observations into a theory, and that each feeding time added justification to that theory. Then one day the farmer came and wrung the chicken's neck. This inductively justifies the conclusion that induction cannot justify any conclusion.

  Bertrand Russell

  Thinking, One Day, Necks

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• When you love, love with with all your heart; don't have any expectations. You love because that's the only way you know how. It justifies your life.

  Rita Zahara

  Life, Heart, Love Is

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• Women of a selected class, by the use of slaves and servants have become inactive, the mere recipients of values, no longer creators but "feeding on unearned wealth." This hurts their nature and debases the social fabric. If a woman does no labor in her home which could properly make her self-supporting outside that home she is in duty bound to do something outside her home to justify her claim to support.

  Anna Garlin Spencer

  Hurt, Home, Self

  Anna Garlin Spencer (1908). “Woman's Share in Social Culture”

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