Quotes on Social Justice

We have too many high-sounding words, and too few actions that correspond with them.

I know I'm not a man-about that much I'm very clear, and I've come to the conclusion that I'm probably not a woman either, at least not according to a lot of people's rules on this sort of thing. The trouble is, we're living in a world that insists we be one or the other-a world that doesn't bother to tell us exactly what one or the other is.

Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe.

We would have every arbitrary barrier thrown down. We would have every path laid open to woman as freely as to man.

Hate demands existence, and he who hates has to show his hate in appropriate actions and behaviors; in a sense, he has to become hate. That is why the Americans have substituted discrimination for lynching.

I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizens Councilor or the Ku Klux Klanner but the white moderate who is more devoted to order than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice.

In its pursuit of justice for a segment of society, in disregard of the consequences for society as a whole, what is called 'social justice' might more accurately be called anti-social justice, since what consistently gets ignored or dismissed are precisely the costs to society. Such a conception of justice seeks to correct, not only biased or discriminatory acts by individuals or by social institutions, but unmerited disadvantages in general, from whatever source they may arise.

Violence is black children going to school for 12 years and receiving 6 years' worth of education.

The next few months are critical to Pakistan's future direction as a democratic state committed to promoting peace, fighting terrorism and working for social justice.

The love of liberty is the love of others; the love of power is the love of ourselves.

No one can be perfectly free till all are free; no one can be perfectly moral till all are moral; no one can be perfectly happy till all are happy.

A nation writes its history in the image of its ideal.

Changes are inseparable from democracy. To defend democracy is to defend the possibility of change; in turn, changes alone can strengthen democracy.

It is not that the Englishman can't feel-it is that he is afraid to feel. He has been taught at his public school that feeling is bad form. He must not express great joy or sorrow, or even open his mouth too wide when he talks-his pipe might fall out if he did.

Nothing is worse than active ignorance.

If the building of a bridge does not enrich the awareness of those who work on it, then the bridge ought not to be built.

You are not judged by the height you have risen, but from the depth you have climbed.

We fancy men are individuals; so are pumpkins; but every pumpkin in the field goes through every point of pumpkin history.

If I have advocated the cause of the Negro, it is not because I am a Negro, but because I am a man.

We are free to say that in respect to political rights, we hold women to be justly entitled to all we claim for men.

I am myself and what is around me, and if I do not save it, it shall not save me.