It's important that we elevate and primarily focus on the rights of American citizens, but it's also important that we don't forget, 95 percent of the world's population lives beyond our own borders.
Edward SnowdenRead
What is right is not always the same as what is legal
Interpretation
Legality does not always equate to morality.
This quote by Edward Snowden emphasizes the distinction between what is legally permissible and what is ethically or morally right. It suggests that actions can be legally sanctioned yet still be fundamentally unjust or wrong, prompting reflection on the importance of our values and judgment in determining right from wrong.
In practice
During a debate on human rights, one might reference this quote to discuss the limitations of laws.
It's important that we elevate and primarily focus on the rights of American citizens, but it's also important that we don't forget, 95 percent of the world's population lives beyond our own borders.
I think the most important idea is to remember that there have been times throughout American history where what is right is not the same as what is legal.
Congress hasn't declared war on the countries - the majority of them are our allies - but without asking for public permission, NSA is running network operations against them that affect millions of innocent people. And for what? So we can have secret access to a computer in a country we're not even fighting?
A child born today will grow up with no conception of privacy at all.
Being called a traitor by Dick Cheney is the highest honor you can give an American, and the more panicked talk we hear from people like him... the better off we all are.
I don't see myself as a hero because what I'm doing is self-interested: I don't want to live in a world where there's no privacy and therefore no room for intellectual exploration and creativity.
Irresolution on the schemes of life which offer themselves to our choice, and inconstancy in pursuing them, are the greatest causes of all our unhappiness.
And sometimes you didn't want to know the end⦠because how could the end be happy?
It is not the being seen of men that is wrong, but doing these things for the purpose of being seen of men. The problem with the hypocrite is his motivation.
You form a society: that limits you. Adopt a name, and you've limited yourself again; draw up a constitution and bylaws and you've made a groove, a rut, that hampers your growth. You think you can fix your course and move straight along it. But sometimes the important thing is to strike out sidewise.
Few people realise the immensity of vacancy in which the dust of the material universe swims.
In old age our bodies are worn-out instruments, on which the soul tries in vain to play the melodies of youth. But because the instrument has lost its strings, or is out of tune, it does not follow that the musician has lost his skill.
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