Quotes by Poets - Page 197

Capitalism is a social system owned by the capitalistic class, a small network of very wealthy and powerful businessmen, who compromise the health and security of the general population for corporate gain.
Suzy Kassem
Perhaps pondering words is also a form of seeking justice. If a monologue can invite a chorus, then perhaps it can speak for others as well.
Duo Duo
An over-indulgence of anything, even something as pure as water, can intoxicate.
Criss Jami
Your edict, King, was strong,But all your strength is weakness itself againstThe immortal unrecorded laws of God.They are not merely now: they were, and shall be,Operative for ever, beyond man utterly.I knew I must die, even without your decree:I am only mortal. And if I must dieNow, before it is my time to die,Surely this is no hardship: can anyoneLiving, as I live, with evil all about me,Think Death less than a friend?
Sophocles
High justice would in no way be debased if ardent love should cancel instantly the debts these penitents must satisfy.
Dante Alighieri
When a man kills another man, the people say he is a murderer, but when the Emir kills him, the Emir is just. When a man robs a monastery, they say he is a thief, but when the Emir robs him of his life, the Emir is honourable. When a woman betrays her husband, they say she is an adulteress, but when the Emir makes her walk naked in the streets and stones her later, the Emir is noble. Shedding of blood is forbidden, but who made it lawful for the Emir? Stealing one's money is a crime, but taking away one's life is a noble act. Betrayal of a husband may be an ugly deed, but stoning of living souls is a beautiful sight. Shall we meet evil with evil and say this is the Law? Shall we fight corruption with greater corruption and say this is the Rule? Shall we conquer crimes with more crimes and say this is Justice? Had not the Emir killed an enemy in his past life? Had he not robbed his weak subjects of money and property? Had he not committed adultery? Was he infallible when he killed the murderer and hanged the thief in the tree? Who are those who hanged the thief in the tree? Are they angels descended from heaven, or men looting and usurping? Who cut off the murderer's head? Are they divine prophets, or soldiers shedding blood wherever they go? Who stoned that adulteress? Were they virtuous hermits who came from their monasteries, or humans who loved to commit atrocities with glee, under the protection of ignorant Law? What is Law? Who saw it coming with the sun from the depths of heaven? What human saw the heart of God and found its will or purpose? In what century did the angels walk among the people and preach to them, saying, "Forbid the weak from enjoying life, and kill the outlaws with the sharp edge of the sword, and step upon the sinners with iron feet?
Kahlil Gibran
Millions of tears have fallen for black sons, brothers, lovers, and friends whose assailants took or maimed their lives and then simply went on their way.
Aberjhani
The issue, perhaps, boils down to one of how perceptions or misperceptions of racial difference impact various individuals’, or groups of individuals’, experience of freedom in America. Some would argue that it goes beyond hampering their 'pursuit of happiness' to outright obliterating it.
Aberjhani
Moreover, they who returned, if any, would be flogged, as seemed proper, after due examination. And though the news of their beatings might help all others to hesitation, ere they did foolishly, in like fashion, yet was the principle of the flogging not on this base, which would be both improper and unjust; but only that the one in question be corrected to the best advantage for his own well-being; for it is not meet that any principle of correction should shape to the making of human signposts of pain for the benefit of others; for in verity, this were to make one pay the cost of many's learning; and each should owe to pay only so much as shall suffice for the teaching of his own body and spirit. And if others profit thereby, this is but accident, however helpful. And this is wisdom, and denoteth now that a sound Principle shall prevent Practice from becoming monstrous.
William Hope Hodgson
Shed not recklessly the blood of another with thy sword,Lest the Sword on High falls upon thy neck.
Guru Gobind Singh
The oligarchs do not care what justice is, only what seems just. They do not care what mercy is, only what appears merciful. Thus justice and mercy will always escape them.
Catherynne M. Valente
But pity there was none. For all his old age, and his one arm, and his blind eyes, he must die the death and be murdered, in order to light the gay bridals and other merry-makings of men, and also to illuminate the solemn churches that preach unconditional inoffensiveness by all to all.
Herman Melville
Can it be true that freedom only exists when it is a treasure, shared by all?
Margarita Engle
But when justice is done the world drops away.
Anne Carson
we rescue our tears from the seasecure them by writ
M. NourbeSe Philip
The voice of the majority is no proof of justice
Friedrich Schiller
Justice is the cardinal virtue of peace.
Kristian Goldmund Aumann
The only justice is to follow the sincere intuition of the soul, angry or gentle. Anger is just, and pity is just, but judgement is never just.
D.H. Lawrence
Justice has a right to protest against injustice.
Kristian Goldmund Aumann
Love of justice is for most men only the courage to suffer injustice.
Comte de Lautréamont
Only tyranny fears the full expression of liberty.
José Martí
She had a highly developed sense of humor which in some lights looked a bit like a sense of justice.
Catherynne M. Valente
All acts of kindness are lights in the war for justice.
Joy Harjo
Justice was like coloured balls in a magician's hand, changing colour and shape all the time beneath the light of politics.
Qiu Xiaolong
407Justice was like coloured balls in a magician's hand, changing colour and shape all the time beneath the light of politics.
Qiu Xiaolong
I would rather die fighting for what is right, than live passively amidst all that is wrong.
Suzy Kassem
Hey you —All our fevered history won't instill insight,won't turn a body conscious,won't make that look in the eyes say yes, though there is nothingto solve even as each moment is an answer.
Claudia Rankine
There is a falling from the skyThe sacred hoop is brokenBut different hands with different voiceHear the ancient songsAnd soonAll men will seeThat truth and justiceMustPrevail.
Laurence Overmire
In a just cause the weak will beat the strong!
Sophocles
We’re not crazy. We’re just not in the dark anymore. And my goodness, we can see you so clearly now.
Saeed Jones
I think that for those who have suffered unjustly, justice alone is not enough. They want the guilty to suffer unjustly too. Only this will they understand as justice.
Tadeusz Borowski
If all men are made in God's reflection, then why do some people continue to acknowledge only what is in their part of the mirror? If every man was truly created equal, and in the image of God, then how can any man claim that one race is better than another, or that one nation is less deserving than another?
Suzy Kassem
Oftentimes have I heard you speak of one who commits a wrong as though he were not one of you, but a stranger unto you and an intruder upon your world.But I say that even as the holy and the righteous cannot rise beyond the highest which is in each one of you,So the wicked and the weak cannot fall lower than the lowest which is in you also.And as a single leaf turns not yellow but with the silent knowledge of the whole tree,So the wrong-doer cannot do wrong without the hidden will of you all.Like a procession you walk together towards your god-self.You are the way and the wayfarers.And when one of you falls down he falls for those behind him, a caution against the stumbling stone.Ay, and he falls for those ahead of him, who though faster and surer of foot, yet removed not the stumbling stone.
Kahlil Gibran
Haemon: No city is property of a single man.Creon: But custom gives possession to the ruler.Haemon: You'd rule a desert beautifully alone.
Sophocles
Whenever you deny the hand of Justice, Violence almost always steps in.
Suzy Kassem
For there to be harmony and peace, everything must be balanced. And for there to be balance, there must be equality. Where there is equality, there will be justice. And where justice is honored and preserved, there will always be truth.
Suzy Kassem
One hour devoted to mourning and lamenting theStolen equality of the weak is nobler than aCentury filled with greed and usurpation.
Kahlil Gibran
The gods are just, and of our pleasant vicesMake instruments to plague us.
William Shakespeare
Stand up for Truth even it means standing alone.
Suzy Kassem
Stand up for what is fair against the unfair.
Suzy Kassem
You are not for the left or right team, but for what is right against the wrong.
Suzy Kassem
Nothing amuses people more than a cocky guy who starts losing.
Criss Jami
Let there be no love poems writtenUntil love can exist freely andCleanly.
Amiri Baraka
Like honey is the sleep of the just.
Anne Carson
justice...is not inherent in the universe and what man has put there he uses when he uses it at all strictly for his own purposes the world is so sad that the only way to live with it is to laugh at it
Don Marquis
God's judgment is not like man's judgment. It is not a suspension of His Love but an extension of His Love. His justice is always righteous, so His judgment is always Love.
Criss Jami
Dumbfounded, I stood before the court, trying to figure out if there was a state of being between “guilty” and “innocent.” Why were those my only alternatives? I thought. Why couldn’t I be “neither” or “both”? After a long pause, I finally faced the bench and said, “Your Honor, I plead human.
Paul Beatty
Is it a crime to want to be good? she cried
Luis Alberto Urrea
Our power comes from the earth
Luis Alberto Urrea
I am in the earth and the earth is in me
Luis Alberto Urrea
They breathed. They felt their lungs fill the sky, and they let the dark clouds inside them flow out. Then they connected to the earth.
Luis Alberto Urrea
Life shifting, as life does
Luis Alberto Urrea
Gringos! They have copied us again
Luis Alberto Urrea
Hark, villains! I will grind your bones to dust. (Act V, Scene 2, 2503)
William Shakespeare
I did believe, at first, that I wanted only justice. I thought my heart was pure. We do like to have such good opinions of our motives when we're about to do something harmful, to someone else. But as Mr. Erskine also pointed out, Eros with his bow and arrows is not the only blind god. Justitia is the other one. Clumsy blind gods with edged weapons: Justitia totes a sword, which, coupled with her blindfold, is a pretty good recipe for cutting yourself.
Margaret Atwood
I understand now that the only time black people don't feel guilty is when we've actually done something wrong, because that relieves us of the cognitive dissonance of being black and innocent, and in a way the prospect of going to jail becomes a relief.
Paul Beatty
However, experience has taught us that action in the now is also necessary, always. Our children cannot dream unless they live, they cannot live unless they are nourished, and who else will feed them the real food without which their dreams will be no different from ours? 'If you want us to change the world someday, we at least have to live long enough to grow up!' shouts the child.
Audre Lorde
I beg for justice, which you, Prince, must give. Romeo killed Tybalt; Romeo must not live.
William Shakespeare
The only thing you can justifiably claim that life owes you is an equal measure of what you have given out. And even that is debatable.
Richelle E. Goodrich
Can anything be imagined more abhorrent to every sentiment of generosity and justice, than the law which arms the rich with the legal right to fix, by assize, the wages of the poor? If this is not slavery, we have forgotten its definition. Strike the right of associating for the sale of labor from the privileges of a freeman, and you may as well bind him to a master, or ascribe him to the soil.
William Cullen Bryant