All governments that have flourished since the beginning of time have been nothing more than a conspiracy of the rich to perpetuate themselves under the guise of statecraft.
Thomas More
The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.
Paraphrased by Martin Luther King, Jr. from a statement by Theodore Park
All education ought to be radical - a reminder of the past, a challenge to the present, and a prod to the future.
Benjamin Barber
Justice will not be achieved until those who are not hurt are just as indignant as those who are.
Solon
The mood and temper of the public in regard to the treatment of crime and criminals is one of the most unfailing tests of the civilization of any country. A calm dispassionate recognition of the rights of the accused and even of the convicted criminal against the State; a constant heart searching of all charged with the deed of punishment; tireless efforts toward the discovery of regenerative processes; unfailing faith that there is a treasure, if you can find it, in the heart of every man. These are the symbols which in the treatment of crime and criminals make and measure the stored-up strength of a nation and are sign and proof of the living virtue in it.
Winston Churchill
The mark of a civilized society is the willingness of the people to obey the unenforceable.
Adapted from Martin Luther King, Jr.
The chief duty of society is justice.
Alexander Hamilton
The salvation of the state is watchfulness in the citizen.
Engraved on the north face of the Nebraska State Capitol
Take sides. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.
Elie Wiesel (Nazi death camp survivor)
There are many times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.
Elie Wiesel (Nazi death camp survivor)
Do not go gentle into the night. Rage, rage at the dying of the light.
Dylan Thomas
Take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing, end them.
Shakespeare's Hamlet
Silence gives consent. They came first for the Communists and I didn’t speak up, because I wasn’t a Communist. Then they came for the Jews and I didn’t speak up, because I wasn’t a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists and I didn’t speak up, because I wasn’t a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics and I didn’t speak up, because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time, no one was left to speak up.
Martin Niemoeller (Nazi death camp survivor)
If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish and ulterior motives. Do good anyway. If you are successful, you will win false friends and true enemies. Succeed anyway. The biggest people with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest people with the smallest minds. Think big anyway. What you spend years to build may be destroyed overnight. Build anyway. The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway. Give the world the best you have and you will get kicked in the teeth. Give anyway.
Winston Churchil
The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise.
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Ideals, dreams, and cherished hopes rise within us, only to meet the horrible truth and be shattered….yet I keep them, because in spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart. I dimply can’t build up my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery, and death. I see the world gradually being turned into a wilderness, I hear the ever approaching thunder, I can feel the sufferings of millions, and yet, if I look up into the heavens, I think that it will all come right, that this cruelty too will end, and that peace and tranquility will return again.
Anne Frank
All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good me to do nothing.
Edmond Burke
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.
Theodore Roosevelt
We live today in an era of challenge. This is a time of uncertainty and peril; it is a time of great opportunity. The decisions we make as a people, as a government, during the next few years will affect this planet for generations to come. In fact, what the United States does can very will determine the more basic question – whether there will even be generations to come. All of us are most concerned about the kind of America we want to pass on to our children. Every generation inherits a world it never made; and, as it does so, it automatically becomes the trustee of that world for those who come after. In due course, each generation makes its own accounting to its children. When our time comes, we want to make sure that we bequeath to our descendants a better and safer world than the one in which we live in today, a world in which people will be free from the terrors of war and oppressions, free from the handicaps of ignorance and poverty, free to realize their own talents and fulfill their own destinies.
Robert F. Kennedy
Press on. Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not. Nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with innate/natural talent. Genius will not. Unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education alone will not. The world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence is singularly omnipotent.
Calvin Coolidge
Never, never, never, never, never give up.
Winston Churchill