No principle is worth the sacrifice of a single human being.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the importance of human life over any principle or ideology.
Daniel Berrigan's quote suggests that no matter how important a belief or principle may seem, it should never take precedence over the value of a single human life. It serves as a reminder to prioritize compassion and humanity over rigid dogmas or abstract ideals, illustrating the moral responsibility we hold towards each other as human beings.
In practice
In a speech advocating for social justice, this quote could highlight the need for empathy in leadership.
Instead of building the peace by attacking injustices like starvation, disease, illiteracy, political and economic servitude, we spend a trillion dollars on war since 1946, until hatred and conflict have become the international preoccupation.
Of course, let us have peace, we cry, "but at the same time let us have normalcy, let us lose nothing, let our lives stand intact, let us know neither prison nor ill repute nor disruption of ties ... " There is no peace because there are no peacemakers. There are no makers of peace because the making of peace is at least as costly as the making of war - at least as exigent, at least as disruptive, at least as liable to bring disgrace and prison, and death in its wake.
The death of a single human being is too heavy a price for the vindication of any principle, however sacred.
The God of life summons us to life; more, to be lifegivers, especially toward those who lie under the heel of the powers.
For my part, I believe that the vain, glorious and the violent will not inherit the earth. . . . In pursuance of that faith my friends and I take the hands of the dying in our hands. And some of us travel to the Pentagon, and others live in the Bowery and serve there, and others speak unpopularly and plainly of the fate of the unborn and of convicted criminals. It is all one.
Sometime in your life, hope that you might see one starved man, the look on his face when the bread finally arrives. Hope that you might have baked it or bought or even kneaded it yourself. For that look on his face, for your meeting his eyes across a piece of bread, you might be willing to lose a lot, or suffer a lot, or die a little, even.
I do not Google myself, I do not read comments, and I barely look myself in the eye when I look in the mirror.
One open way of speaking introduces another open way of speaking, and draws out discoveries, like wine and love.
I repeat that the poor, the sufferers from leprosy, the rejected, the alcoholics, whom we serve, are beautiful people. Many of them have wonderful personalities. The experience which we have by serving them, we must pass on to people who have not had that wonderful experience.
Ironically, the very fact that democracy has such a lengthy history has actually contributed to confusion and disagreement, for 'democracy' has meant different things to different people at different times and places.
In my dreams, I never have an age.
The first question we would ask if aliens landed on this planet is not, 'What does this mean for the economy or jobs?' It would be, 'Are they friendly or unfriendly?'
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