If freedom makes social progress possible, so social progress strengthens and enlarges freedom. The two are inseparable partners in the great adventure of humanity.
Robert KennedyRead
Every society gets the kind of criminal it deserves. What is equally true is that every community gets the kind of law enforcement it insists on.
Interpretation
Society's values shape both its criminals and law enforcement.
This quote by Robert Kennedy suggests that the nature of crime and the effectiveness of law enforcement are reflective of the society that produces them. It implies that both the criminals who emerge and the laws that are enforced are a product of the collective attitudes and beliefs of the community, highlighting a mutual responsibility between citizens and their societal structures.
In practice
During a community meeting discussing crime rates, this quote can be used to emphasize the need for active citizen engagement.
If freedom makes social progress possible, so social progress strengthens and enlarges freedom. The two are inseparable partners in the great adventure of humanity.
Elections remind us not only of the rights but the responsibilities of citizenship in a democracy.
Within the United States, we have put great emphasis upon political freedoms. Because it has been our experience that these freedoms can lead to others.
It is one thing to open job opportunities. It is another to train people to fill them, or to persuade American enterprise to seek Negro as well as white applicants.
Our attitude towards immigration reflects our faith in the American ideal. We have always believed it possible for men and women who start at the bottom to rise as far as the talent and energy allow. Neither race nor place of birth should affect their chances.
The Gross National Product measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country. It measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile, and it can tell us everything about America - except whether we are proud to be Americans.
I wonder do the gods know what it feels like to be a man.
When I am dead, and over me bright April Shakes out her rain drenched hair, Tho you should lean above me broken hearted, I shall not care. For I shall have peace. As leafey trees are peaceful When rain bends down the bough. And I shall be more silent and cold hearted Than you are now
But you can catch yourself entertaining habitually certain ideas and setting others aside; and that, I think, is where our personal destinies are largely decided.
They sensed that what had happened around them and in their presence, and in them, was irrevocable. Never again could it be cleansed; it would prove that man, the human species - we, in short - had the potential to construct an enormity of pain, and that pain is the only force created from nothing, without cost and without effort. It is enough not to see, not to listen, not to act.
There is a flaw with words, they always force us to feel enlightened, but when we turn around to face the world they always fail us and we end up facing the world as we always have, without enlightenment
In the consciousness of the infinite, the conscious subject has for his object the infinity of his own nature.
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