Justification Quotes - Page 21

• Nobody needs to justify why they "need" a right: the burden of justification falls on the one seeking to infringe upon the right. But even if they did, you can't give away the rights of others because they're not useful to you. More simply, the majority cannot vote away the natural rights of the minority. Arguing that you don't care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don't care about free speech because you have nothing to say.

  Edward Snowden

  Fall, Rights, Giving

  Reddit AMA, www.reddit.com. May 21, 2015.

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  We are cups, constantly and quietly being filled. The trick is knowing how to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out.

  Ray Bradbury

  Inspirational, Beautiful, Writing

  "Zen in the Art of Writing". Book by Ray Bradbury, 1990.

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• The evidence of justification by faith is the ongoing work of sanctification through the Holy Spirit.

  Paul Washer

  Ongoing, Spirit, Holy

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• Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter without adequate inducement or justification.

  George Washington

  Real, War, Enmity

  George Washington (2008). “George Washington's Rules of Civility and Decent Behavior: ...And Other Important Writings”, p.175, Sourcebooks, Inc.

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• The tyrant dies and his rule is over, the martyr dies and his rule begins.

  Soren Kierkegaard

  Death, Tyrants, Political

  Soren Kierkegaard (2015). “Papers and Journals”, p.370, Penguin UK

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• Popularity has become its own justification.

  Jonathan Franzen

  Popularity

  Jonathan Franzen (2007). “How to Be Alone: Essays”, p.170, Macmillan

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• Religion has run out of justifications. Thanks to the telescope and the microscope, it no longer offers an explanation of anything important. Where once it used to able, by its total command of a worldview, to prevent the emergence of rivals, it can now only impede and retard-or try to turn back-the measureable advances that we have made.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Running, Science, Important

  Christopher Hitchens (2012). “Long Live Hitch: Three Classic Books in One Volume”, p.268, Atlantic Books Ltd

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• Desperate? That can be a justification for all kinds of behavior.

  Jessica Walter

  Kind, Desperate, Behavior

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• Just who has imposed on the suffering human race poison gas, barbed wire, high explosives, experiments in eugenics, the formula for zyklon b, heavy artillery, pseudo-scientific justifications for mass murder, cluster bombs, attack submarines, napalm, intercontinental missiles , military space platforms and nuclear weapons? If memory serves it was not the Vatican.

  David Berlinski

  Memories, Military, Eugenics

  David Berlinski (2009). “The Devil's Delusion: Atheism and Its Scientific Pretensions”, p.21, Basic Books

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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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• Regime change has been an American policy under the Clinton administration, and it is the current policy. I support the policy. But regime change in and of itself is not sufficient justification for going to war--particularly unilaterally--unless regime change is the only way to disarm Iraq of the weapons of mass destruction pursuant to the United Nations resolution.

  John F. Kerry

  War, Mass Destruction, Iraq

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• Leaving traces of ourselves, as in creative productivity, could then be seen as part of the definition of consciousness for us as well. We know that in order to progress we must stretch for something just out of reach--if only for a life that will be more compassionate and decent than the cruelty, paranoia, greed, narrow corporatism, or narcissism we mostly indulge in and find such ample justification for. And so we dream.

  Breyten Breytenbach

  Dream, Order, Indulge In

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• Oh! To not need cognitive justification for every single thing. Wouldn't that be a life?

  Laura Marling

  Needs, Cognitive

  "Laura Marling: 'Americans - they're just a lot more poetic'". Interview With Tom Lamont, www.theguardian.com. April 27, 2013.

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• In sha Allah, God willing, must be the expression of humility of the active actors and it must never be the justification of the passive observers

  Tariq Ramadan

  Inspirational, God, Faith

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• The early Stones were adolescent rockers. They were self-conscious in an obvious and unpretentious way. And they were committed to a musical style that needed no justification because it came so naturally to them. As they grew musically the mere repetition of old rock and blues tunes became increasingly less satisfying.

  Jon Landau

  Rocks, Self, Musical

  Jon Landau (1972). “It's too late to stop now: a rock and roll journal”

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• So great is the worth of Dostoevsky that to have produced him is by itself sufficient justification for the existence of the Russian people in the world: and he will bear witness for his country-men at the last judgement of the nations.

  Nikolai Berdyaev

  Country, Men, People

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• The federal government may not disarm individual citizens without some unusually strong justification.

  Laurence Tribe

  Strong, Gun, Government

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• It was the French Revolution that served as the catalyst of this renovation. Its impact was to make the concept of popular sovereignty the new moral justification for the political system of historical capitalism.

  Immanuel Wallerstein

  Impact, Political, Historical

  Immanuel Maurice Wallerstein (1995). “Capistalist Civilisation”, p.148, Verso

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• There is no justification for the common claim that Christianity was responsible for the abolition of slavery. The Negro slave trade - a far more infamous practice than slavery in the ancient world - was initiated, carried on and defended by Christian men in Christian countries.

  Margaret E. Knight

  Christian, Country, Men

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• By justification we are saved from the guilt of sin…by sanctification we are saved from the power and root of sin

  John Wesley

  Roots, Guilt, Sin

  John Wesley, John Emory (1835). “The Works of the Late Reverend John Wesley, A.M.: From the Latest London Edition with the Last Corrections of the Author, Comprehending Also Numerous Translations, Notes, and an Original Preface, Etc”, p.236

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• The only justification for our concepts and systems of concepts is that they serve to represent the complex of our experiences; beyond this they have not legitimacy.

  Albert Einstein

  Experience, Legitimacy, Concepts

  Albert Einstein (2014). “The Meaning of Relativity: Including the Relativistic Theory of the Non-Symmetric Field”, p.2, Princeton University Press

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• A man can go from being a lover to being a stranger in three moves flat but a woman under the guise of friendship will engage in acts of duplicity which come to light very much later. There are different species of self-justification.

  Anita Brookner

  Love, Friendship, Women

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• Justification, in terms of the broadening of freedom, for any particular form of institution of property must be argued in terms of whether the losses caused by the restrictions imposed are greater or less than the gains derived from the elimination of costly conflict.

  Kenneth E. Boulding

  Loss, Gains, Conflict

  "Principles of Economic Policy". Book by Kenneth E. Boulding, 1958.

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• What our leaders and pundits never let slip is that the terrorists-whatever else they might be-might also be rational human beings ; which is to say that in their own minds they have a rational justification for their actions. Most terrorists are people deeply concerned by what they see as social, political, or religious injustice and hypocrisy, and the immediate grounds for their terrorism is often retaliation for an action of the United States.

  William Blum

  Religious, People, Hypocrisy

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• If a being suffers there can be no moral justification for refusing to take that suffering into consideration. No matter what the nature of the being, the principle of equality requires that its suffering be counted equally with the like suffering - insofar as rough comparisons can be made - of any other being. So the limit of sentience is the only defensible boundary of concern for the interests of others. To mark this boundary by some other characteristic like intelligence or rationality would be to mark it in an arbitrary manner. Why not choose some other characteristic, like skin color?

  Peter Singer

  Animal, Skin Color, Suffering

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