Justify Quotes - Page 5

• The so-called godly man may be more likely to do serious wrong than a man who deeply questions himself. The 'godly man' often zealously follows religious precepts that, in the end, justify an unjust injury to others, while the questioning man, addressing his own conscience, may have the better chance to consider all the circumstances and come to the just decision.

  Gerry Spence

  Religious, Godly, Men

  Gerry Spence (2002). “Seven Simple Steps to Personal Freedom: An Owner's Manual for Life”, p.44, Macmillan

  29 Copy quote

  Show source

• Patriotism! It is used to define so many diversities, to justify so many wrongs, to compass so many ends, that its life is killed out; it becomes a dead word in the vocabulary-a blank counter, to be moved to any part of the game; and that flag which, streaming from the mast-head of our ship of state, striped with martyr-blood, and glistening with the stars of lofty promise, should always indicate our worldwide mission, and the glorious destinies that we carry forward, is bandied about in every selfish skirmish, and held up as the symbol of every political privateer.

  Edwin Hubbel Chapin

  Stars, Selfish, Destiny

  7 Copy quote

• Monarchy is an outrage which even the blind of an entire people cannot justify... all men hold from nature the secret mission to destroy wherever it my be found. No man can reign innocently. The folly is too evident. Every king is a rebel and a usurper. Do kings themselves treat otherwise those who seek to usurp their authority?

  Louis Antoine de Saint-Just

  Kings, Men, People

  18 Copy quote

• We stopped the fighting in 1991 on an agreement that Iraq would take steps to assure the world that it would not engage in further aggression and that it would destroy its weapons of mass destruction. It has refused to take those steps. That refusal constitutes a breach of the armistice which renders it void and justifies resumption of the armed conflict.

  Harry Reid

  Fighting, Mass Destruction, Agreement

  "Where did Syria's chemical weapons come from?" by Frank Salvato, www.breitbart.com. July 14, 2012.

  17 Copy quote

  Show source

• That fact is that we live in an extremely violent culture, and we all justify violence if it's for what we believe in .

  Paul Watson

  Believe, Facts, Culture

  25 Copy quote

• Nothing, nothing justifies terrorism.

  Mahmoud Darwish

  Terrorism

  "The poetry of loss" by Richard Silverstein, www.theguardian.com. August 14, 2008.

  22 Copy quote

  Show source

• It has been hard to get my head around how Justice Antonin Scalia rationalizes his decisions. His body blow to the Voting Rights Act was a head scratcher, but at least he was calm when he attempted to justify his odd logic.

  Henry Rollins

  Blow, Rights, Justice

  "Henry Rollins: Misguided Outrage Over DOMA’s Demise" by Henry Rollins, www.huffingtonpost.com. July 8, 2013.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Evil is not likely to result where people firmly believe that ends do not justify the means.

  Roy Baumeister

  Believe, Mean, People

  6 Copy quote

• What justifies a character singing one idea for 3 minutes on the screen? I get impatient and want the story to carry on. I don't get impatient in the theatre.

  Stephen Sondheim

  Character, Ideas, Singing

  7 Copy quote

• ...(Charles) Reich discredits reason because it has been used to justify the war in Vietnam, which is like deciding that because your mother has cooked you a few bad meals you must never eat again.

  Molly Haskell

  Mother, War, Meals

  5 Copy quote

• Fear of serious injury cannot alone justify suppression of free speech and assembly.

  Louis D. Brandeis

  Speech, Serious, Injury

  Concurring, Whitney v. California, 274 U.S. 357, 1927.

  13 Copy quote

  Show source

• It is a ludicrous statistic plucked out of the air and used to justify a quite appalling attack on many of the poorest people in this country.

  Jeremy Corbyn

  Country, Air, People

  House of Commons, Oral Answers to Questions: International Development, www.publications.parliament.uk. July 8, 2015.

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• We cannot justify ourselves in living by that particular part of the word that appeals to us, the part that we desire to obey, but must be willing to. . . live by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.

  Albert E. Bowen

  Desire, Mouths, Appeals

  5 Copy quote

• Left-wing social policies sicken our behavior and corrupt our culture. People bend principles and sacrifice integrity to get as much as they can from the government. Giveaway programs encourage every imaginable sort of cheating and dishonesty. Wheeling and dealing in food stamps is a way of life. Lying and fraud are commonplace. Whenever you're dependent on the money, the end justifies the means.

  James Cook

  Cheating, Lying, Integrity

  50 Copy quote

• Understand the causes of terror? Yes, we should try, but let there be no moral ambiguity about this: nothing could ever justify the events of September 11 and it is to turn justice on its head to pretend it could

  Tony Blair

  Justice, September 11, Trying

  Address at the Labour Party Conference, delivered 2 October 2001

  64 Copy quote

  Show source

• My mother had to justify the fact that she had heart pills.

  Patrik Sinkewitz

  Mother, Heart, Pills

  4 Copy quote

• The ends do not justify the means

  Seth

  Mean, Ends, Warrior Of The Light

  4 Copy quote

• Sometimes I hear news about the huge dollars involved with CEO pay and corporate-management salaries, and I'm mystified at how someone can justify taking that much at the cost of other people's livelihoods. In a bizarre way, I'm almost kind of curious, like "How can they absolve themselves and enjoy their wealth?" I don't understand it.

  Eddie Vedder

  People, News, Pay

  Source: www.avclub.com

  15 Copy quote

  Show source

• Let no one try to justify the glaring difference between the classes and the masses, the prince and the pauper, by saying that the former need more.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Equality, Class, Differences

  Mahatma Gandhi, Dennis Dalton (1996). “Gandhi: Selected Political Writings”, p.140, Hackett Publishing

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Pure motives can never justify impure or violent action.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Action, Purity, Violent

  Mahatma Gandhi (1965). “Glorious Thoughts of Gandhi: Being a Treasury of about Ten Thousand Valuable and Inspiring Thougths of Mahatma Gandhi, Classified Under Four Hundred Subjects”

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I'm offended by the is-ought fallacy, which has been used to justify slavery, women not being allowed to vote, children working in factories.

  Moby

  Children, Slavery, Vote

  "Exclusive Premiere of Moby’s New Video, 'The Last Day'". Interview with Jaeah Lee, www.motherjones.com. September 2, 2014.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The philosophers of industrialism, from Bacon to Bentham, from Smith to Marx, insisted that the improvement of man's condition was the highest requirement of morality. But in what did the improvement consist? The answer seemed so obvious to them that they did not bother to justify it: the expansion and fulfillment of the material wants of man, and the spread of these benefits, from the few who had once preempted them, to the many who had so long lived on the scraps Dives had thrown into the gutter.

  Lewis Mumford

  Men, Long, Expansion

  6 Copy quote

• To justify being listened to, I try to be as well informed as I can. Hence, the travel. Reading is good too. Reading gets you part way there, and I do read pretty voraciously for a guy who's trying to write so much.

  Henry Rollins

  Reading, Writing, Guy

  Source: lithiummagazine.com

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The hour when you say, "What does my happiness matter? It is poverty and filth, and a wretched complacency. Yet my happiness should justify existence itself!

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Happiness, Matter, Complacency

  5 Copy quote

• I say salvation is the free gift of God. It is God's free grace, I preach unto you, not of works, lest anyone should boast. Jesus Christ justifies the ungodly. Jesus Christ passed by and saw you polluted with your blood and bid you live.

  George Whitefield

  Jesus, Blood, Free Gifts

  George Whitefield (1828). “Sermons on important subjects ... With a memoir of the Author by S. Drew; and a dissertation on his character, preaching, etc., by Joseph [or rather Josiah] Smith”, p.128

  29 Copy quote

  Show source