Justice and Equality

When the missionaries came to Africa they had the Bible and we had the land. They said, 'Let us pray.' We closed our eyes. When we opened them we had the Bible and they had the land.

The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities.

To bring aid to everyone in need far surpasses the powers and advantage of a private person. . . . So the case of the poor falls upon society as a whole.

The spirit of a people, its cultural level, its social structure, the deeds its policy may prepare—all this and more is written in its fiscal history, stripped of all phrases. He who knows how to listen to its message here discerns the thunder of world history more clearly than anywhere else.

I cannot believe that a republic could subsist at the present time, if the influence of lawyers in public business did not increase in proportion to the power of the people.

The right to swing my fist ends where the other man's nose begins.

Laws grind the poor, and rich men rule the law.

I’ the commonwealth I would by contraries Execute all things; for no kind of traffic Would I admit; no name of magistrate; Letters should not be known; riches, poverty, And use of service, none; contract, succession, Bourn, bound of land, tilth, vineyard, none; No use of metal, corn, or wine, or oil; No occupation; all men idle, all; And women too, but innocent and pure. 58

Bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny.

The rank is but the guinea’s stamp,

‘Two nations; between whom there is no intercourse and no sympathy; who are as ignorant of each other’s habits, thoughts, and feelings, as if they were dwellers in different zones, or inhabitants of different planets; who are formed by a different breeding, are fed by a different food, are ordered by different manners, and are not governed by the same laws.’ ‘You speak of—’ said Egremont, hesitatingly, ‘ THE RICH AND THE POOR. ’

The one great principle of the English law is, to make business for itself.

Happy the people whose annals are blank in history-books!

We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.

Overcoming poverty is not a gesture of charity. It is an act of justice.

Justice denied in Massachusetts.

As long as I have any choice, I will stay only in a country where political liberty, toleration, and equality of all citizens before the law are the rule.

Sometimes Virtue starves, while Vice is fed.

Any city however small, is in fact divided into two, one the city of the poor, the other of the rich. These are at war with one another.

Never be afraid to raise your voice for honesty and truth and compassion against injustice and lying and greed. If people all over the world . . . would do this, it would change the earth.

There is no king who has not had a slave among his ancestors, and no slave who has not had a king among his.

Here [in Paris] they hang a man first, and try him afterwards.

The needs of a human being are sacred. Their satisfaction cannot be subordinated either toreasons of state, or to any consideration ofmoney, nationality, race, or color, or to themoral or other value attributed to the humanbeing in question, or to any considerationwhatsoever.

I hope your committee will not permit doubts as to constitutionality, however reasonable, to block the suggested legislation [the Bituminous Coal Conservation Act of 1935].