Little boldness is needed to assail the opinions and practices of notoriously wicked men; but to rebuke great and good men for their conduct, and to impeach their discernment, is the highest effort of moral courage.
Interpretation
It takes more courage to challenge the actions of good people than to criticize the wicked.
In this quote, William Lloyd Garrison emphasizes the significance of moral courage, particularly in the context of confronting individuals who are generally regarded as virtuous or good. While it may be easy to criticize those who are morally reprehensible, true bravery lies in the ability to question and challenge the decisions or actions of those who are well-respected, highlighting the complexity of moral judgment and the difficulty of navigating ethical dilemmas.
In practice
This quote can be used in a speech about the importance of standing up for one's beliefs even when it's difficult.
Our country is the world, our countrymen are all mankind. We love the land of our nativity, only as we love all other lands. The interests, rights, and liberties of American citizens are no more dear to us than are those of the whole human race. Hence we can allow no appeal to patriotism, to revenge any national insult or injury.
Surely, nothing can be more dangerous than the doctrine that the moral obligations of men change with the latitude and longitude of a place.
I do not believe that God has created us under this dire necessity to toil, like beasts, to sustain life. I believe it is his will that we should hold absolute mastery over time, so as to devote it mainly to intellectual and moral improvement, domestic enjoyment, and social intercourse.
If the State cannot survive the anti-slavery agitation, then let the State perish. If the Church must be cast down by the strugglings of Humanity to be free, then let the Church fall and its fragments be scattered to the four winds of Heaven, never more to curse the earth.
Has not the experience of two centuries shown that gradualism in theory is perpetuity in practice? Is there an instance, in the history of the world, where slaves have been educated for freedom by their task-masters?
The apathy of the people is enough to make every statue leap from its pedestal and hasten the resurrection of the dead.
It is not these well-fed long-haired men that I fear, but the pale and the hungry-looking.
An act of heroism, of extraordinary courage, the grandeur of it, won't easily inspire us to act in imitation, but it can inspire us to emulate its author. For that, we should learn what we can of the whole experience of the subject, the hero's life, as it was before and after, and believe that trying to emulate the character it reveals is one tried way to prepare for the tests that might await us and gain hope that our courage will not be wanting in the moment.
My patriotism and my conscience required me to support it and to engage in the debate over whether and how to fight it.
These are nonviolent people who have lost their freedom simply because they expressed their ideas….In truth, they are heroes of our time.
As a woman in Saudi Arabia, you have one of two options. You either lose your mind - which at first happened to me because I fell into a deep depression - or you become a feminist.
I'm for human lib, the liberation of all people, not just black people or female people or gay people.
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