Social Justice Quotes - Page 6

• We fancy men are individuals; so are pumpkins; but every pumpkin in the field goes through every point of pumpkin history.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Justice, Diversity

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1870). “The Prose Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.545, Рипол Классик

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• Freedom is not worth fighting for if it means no more than license for everyone to get as much as he can for himself.

  Dorothy Canfield Fisher

  Mean, Fighting, Justice

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• The single largest variable that predicts SAT scores is family income. If you want higher SAT scores, you need to get your kids born into wealthier families. You know, it's great to tell kids to pull themselves up by their own boot straps, but you better put boots on them first.

  Paul Houston

  Kids, Justice, Diversity

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• Things do exist that are worth standing up for without compromise. To me it seems that peace and social justice are such things, as is Christ himself.

  Dietrich Bonhoeffer

  Justice, Compromise, Christ

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• Aye, fight! But not your neighbor. Fight rather all the things that cause you and your neighbor to fight.

  Mikhail Naimy

  Peace, Fighting, Ubuntu

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• In the end, as any successful teacher will tell you, you can only teach the things that you are. If we practice racism then it is racism we teach.

  Max Lerner

  Teacher, Successful, Practice

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• When a white man in Africa by accident looks into the eyes of a native and sees the human being (which it is the chief preoccupation to avoid), his sense of guilt, which he denies, fumes up in resentment and he brings down the whip.

  Doris Lessing

  Eye, Men, White Man

  The Grass is Singing (1950) ch. 8

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• When old settlers say 'One has to understand the country,' what they mean is, 'You have to get used to our ideas about the native.' They are saying in effect, 'Learn our ideas, or otherwise get out; we don't want you.'

  Doris Lessing

  Country, Mean, Ideas

  'The Grass is Singing' (1950) ch. 1

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• Sustainability is another word for justice, for what is just is sustainable and what is unjust is not.

  Matthew Fox

  Justice, Unjust, Sustainability

  Matthew Fox (2006). “A New Reformation: Creation Spirituality and the Transformation of Christianity”, p.50, Simon and Schuster

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• Men, in general, seem to employ their reason to justify prejudices...rather than to root them out.

  Mary Wollstonecraft

  Men, Roots, Justice

  1792 A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, pt.1, ch.1.

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• I don’t mind expressing my opinions and speaking out against injustice. I would be doing this even if I wasn’t a writer. I grew up in a household that believed in social justice. I have always understood myself as having an obligation to stand on the side of the silenced, the oppressed, and the mistreated.

  Tayari Jones

  Justice, Mind, Sides

  "Tayari Jones Knows Why She Sings". Interview with Ru Freeman, www.huffingtonpost.com. May 9, 2012.

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• I have come to believe that our lives can be turned in a different direction, our minds adopt a different way of thinking, by some significant, though small event. That belief can be frightening, or exhilarating, depending on whether you just contemplate it or do something with it.

  Howard Zinn

  Believe, Thinking, Justice

  Howard Zinn (2010). “You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train: A Personal History of Our Times”, p.173, Beacon Press

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• How far does one combine resistance to over-control with social justice, i.e. tolerable living for people in general? We are too selfish to be trusted, if left free, to give away enough to make people comfortable enough to give them a chance. Yet if all this is ordered for us, as to some extent it has to be, it so soon leads to tyranny. It is a very difficult problem. If only human beings had more pity, unselfishness, and justice and didn't need coercion to treat each other decently.

  Rose Macaulay

  Selfish, Compassion, Giving

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• It should soon be possible dramatically to increase the intelligence and life span of a few individuals. They and their offspring could become a master race. Evolution pays no regard to social justice. It was not fair on the Neanderthals they were replaced by modern humans.

  Stephen Hawking

  Race, Engineering, Justice

  "Gods of science: Stephen Hawking and Brian Cox discuss mind over matter". The Guardian Interview, www.theguardian.com. September 10, 2010.

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• Our economic assistance must be carefully targeted, and must make maximum use of the energy and efforts of the private sector... Economic freedom is the world's mightiest engine for abundance and social justice... Developing countries need to be encouraged to experiment with a growing variety of arrangements for profit sharing and expanded capital ownership.

  Ronald Reagan

  Country, Wisdom, Justice

  United States. President (1981-1989 : Reagan), United States. President (1981-1989 : Reagan)., Ronald Reagan, United States. Office of the Federal Register (1982). “Ronald Reagan”

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• Over the years, I've found that I either live life or write about it. I can't seem to do both simultaneously - I have to do it sequentially. When I write incessantly, I lose touch with the issues and passions that fuel the work. But when I get too involved in organizations or movement endeavors, I almost forget that I'm a writer. It's a constant struggle to find a balance between these two worlds - the solitary writing life and the life of a social justice activist.

  Letty Cottin Pogrebin

  Struggle, Live Life, Passion

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• Peace is not the silence of cemeteries, but the song of social justice.

  Alfred-Maurice de Zayas

  Song, Justice, Silence

  "Rights Expert Urges the UN General Assembly to Adopt a More Decisive Role in Peace-making". "Alfred de Zayas' Human Rights Corner" blog, dezayasalfred.wordpress.com. September 26, 2013.

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• It should be clear by now that a nation can be no stronger abroad than she is at home. Only an America which practices what it preaches about equal rights and social justice will be respected by those whose choice affects our future. Only an America which has fully educated its citizens is fully capable of tackling the complex problems and perceiving the hidden dangers of the world in which we live. And only an America which is growing and prospering economically can sustain the worldwide defenses of freedom, while demonstrating to all concerned the opportunities of our system and society.

  John F. Kennedy

  Home, Opportunity, Practice

  Undelivered Speech to the Dallas Citizens Council, delivered 22 November 1963, Trade Mart, Dallas, Texas

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• Let us not forget, the financial crisis had its roots in the decision by Congress to embark on a course of social justice to get everyone that wanted a home into one, regardless of whether or not they could afford it.

  Ed Royce

  Home, Roots, Justice

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• Fascism itself can only be turned away if all those who are outraged by it show a commitment to social justice that equals the intensity of their indignation.

  Arundhati Roy

  Commitment, Justice, Social

  Arundhati Roy (2016). “The End of Imagination”, p.79, Haymarket Books

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• With all of its false assumptions and evil methods, communism grew as a protest against the hardships of the underprivileged. Communism in theory emphasized a classless society, and a concern for social justice, though the world knows from sad experience that in practice it created new classes and a new lexicon of injustice.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Wisdom, Practice, Class

  Martin Luther King (Jr.) (1964). “A Martin Luther King Treasury”

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• That's not a utopian vision. It is a set of ideas that we think are important to discuss. Those ideas largely have to do with sustainability of cities. The ability of cities to, over time, remain in balance with the resource streams that are available to them, and they have to do with social justice and equity of the fundamental conditions of satisfactory citizenship.

  William J. Mitchell

  Thinking, Cities, Ideas

  Source: bigthink.com

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• It is my feeling that as we grow older we should become not less radical but more so. I do not, of course, mean this in any political-party sense, but rather in a willingness to struggle for those things in which we passionately believe. Social activism and the struggle for social justice are often thought of as the natural activities of the young but not of the middle-aged or the elderly. In fact, I don't think this was ever true.

  Margaret Laurence

  Party, Believe, Struggle

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• To each, therefore, must be given his own share of goods, and the distribution of created goods, which, as every discerning person knows, is laboring today under the gravest evils due to the huge disparity between the few exceedingly rich and the unnumbered propertyless, must be effectively called back to and brought into conformity with the norms of the common good, that is, social justice.

  Pope Pius XI

  Wisdom, Justice, Evil

  Catholic Church. Pope (1922-1939 : Pius XI), Pope Pius XI (1947). “On reconstructing the social order: (Quadragesimo anno)”

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• I have come to feel strongly that the greatest service I can still render to my fellow men would be that I could make the speakers and writers among them thoroughly ashamed ever again to employ the term "social justice.

  Friedrich August von Hayek

  Men, Justice, Would Be

  "Law, Legislation and Liberty". Book by Friedrich Hayek, Ch. 9 : 'Social' or Distributive Justice, 1973.

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