Quotes About Justice

communities had never been a given in this country, at least not for Blacks. Communities had to be created, fought for, tended like gardens.

unhappy with any presumption that all whites were racist, or that their own fears and day-to-day struggles were less valid.

My liberty depends on you being free, too.

We, the people, declare today that the most evident of truths – that all of us are created equal – is the star that guides us still; just as it guided our forebears through Seneca Falls, and Selma, and Stonewall.

For if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well.

Justice grows out of recognition of ourselves in each other… that my liberty depends on you being free, too… that history can't be a sword to justify injustice or a shield against progress… but must be a manual for how to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past.

not just Dr. King but John Lewis and Bob Moses, Fannie Lou Hamer and Diane Nash. In their heroic efforts—going door-to-door to register voters, sitting down at lunch counters, and marching to freedom songs—I saw the possibility of practicing the values my mother had taught me; how you could build power not by putting others down but by lifting them up.

For my grandfather, race wasn't something you really needed to worry about anymore; if ignorance still held fast in certain locales, it was safe to assume that the rest of the world would be catching up soon.           In

I believe that peace is unstable where citizens are denied the right to speak freely or worship as they please; choose their own leaders or assemble without fear.

To those peoples in the huts and villages of half the globe struggling to break the bonds of mass misery, we pledge our best efforts to help them help themselves, for whatever period is required—not because the Communists may be doing it, not because we seek their votes, but because it is right.

In their heroic efforts—going door-to-door to register voters, sitting down at lunch counters, and marching to freedom songs—I saw the possibility of practicing the values my mother had taught me; how you could build power not by putting others down but by lifting them up. This was true democracy at work—democracy not as a gift from on high, or a division of spoils between interest groups, but rather democracy that was earned, the work of everybody.

Voting is the best revenge. 2012

there were those who argued that government should not interject itself into civil society, that no law could force white people to associate with blacks. Upon hearing these arguments, Dr. King replied, "It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me but it can keep him from lynching me and I think that is pretty important, also.

If more people spoke up, perhaps things might change.

too much focus on civil rights, police misconduct, or other issues considered specific to Black people risked triggering suspicion, if not a backlash, from the broader electorate.

I believed there was an essential bond between the Black and the Jewish experiences—a common story of exile and suffering that might ultimately be redeemed by a shared thirst for justice, a deeper compassion for others, a heightened sense of community

Do we settle for the world as it is, or do we work for the world as it should be?

For the first time since its founding in 1949, NATO invoked Article 5 of its charter, agreeing that the armed attack on one of its members shall be considered an attack against them all. With justice at our backs and the world by our side, we drove the Taliban government out of Kabul in just over a month.

Lewis and Bob Moses, Fannie Lou Hamer and Diane Nash.

Justice grows out of recognition of ourselves in each other. That my liberty depends on you being free, too. That history can't be a sword to justify injustice, or a shield against progress, but must be a manual for how to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past.

Accepting that African Americans and other minority groups might need extra help from the government—that their specific hardships could be traced to a brutal history of discrimination rather than immutable characteristics or individual choices—required a level of empathy, of fellow feeling, that many white voters found difficult to muster.

I wanted to remind the world (and, more important, ourselves) that these terrorists were nothing more than a band of deluded, vicious killers—criminals who could be captured, tried, imprisoned, or killed. And there would be no better way of demonstrating that than by taking out bin Laden.

Sostenemos como evidentes estas verdades: que todos los hombres son creados iguales.»

My main message is to the parents of Trayvon Martin. You know, if I had a son, he'd look like Trayvon.