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...Any
definition of a culture of peace must address
the problem of achieving justice for communities
and individuals who do not have the means
to compete or cope without structured assistance
and compassionate help.
--
Mahnaz Afkhami
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"Reconciliation
should be accompanied by justice, otherwise it will
not last. While we all hope for peace it shouldn't
be peace at any cost but peace based on principle,
on justice"
-- Corazon C. Aquino
I
cannot accept that to be realistic means to
tolerate misery, violence and hate. I do not
believe that the hungry man should be treated
as subversive for expressing his suffering.
I shall never accept that the law can be used
to justify tragedy, to keep things as they are,
to make us abandon our ideas of a different
world. Law is the path of liberty, and must
as such open the way to progress for everyone.
-- Oscar
Arias Sanchez |
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"Charity
is no substitute for justice withheld."
-- Saint Augustine
"Charity
should be abolished; and be replaced by justice."
-- Norman Bethune
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This
is not about charity, it's about justice...
The war against terror is bound up in the
war against poverty - I didn't say that, Colin
Powell said that . . . In these disturbing
and distressing times, surely it's cheaper,
and smarter, to make friends out of potential
enemies than it is to defend yourself against
them..Justice is the surest way to get peace.
-- Bono
On
trade, our hypocrisy is at its most appalling.
Trade reform isn't about charity, it's about
justice, and this campaign, Trade Justice
is an unstoppable idea.
-- Bono
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…the
first essential component of social justice
is adequate food for all mankind. Food is
the moral right of all who are born into this
world.
-- Norman
Borlaug
Without
food, man can live at most but a few weeks;
without it, all other components of social
justice are meaningless.
-- Norman
Borlaug
If
you desire peace, cultivate justice, but at
the same time cultivate the fields to produce
more bread; otherwise there will be no peace.
-- Norman
Borlaug
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It
would be naïve to think that peace and justice
can be achieved easily. No set of rules or
study of history will automatically resolve
the problems … However, with faith and perseverance,
… complex problems in the past have been resolved
in our search for justice and peace.
-- Jimmy
Carter
The
law is not the private property of lawyers,
nor is justice the exclusive province of judges
and juries. In the final analysis, true justice
is not a matter of courts and law books, but
of a commitment in each of us to liberty and
mutual respect.
-- Jimmy
Carter
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"We
ask justice, we ask equality, we ask that all the
civil and political rights that belong to citizens
of the United States, be guaranteed to us and our
daughters forever."
-- Declaration of Rights for Women, July 1876
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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.
-- Frederick
Douglass |
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We
must apply our humble efforts to the construction
of a more just and humane world. And I want
to declare emphatically: Such a world is possible.
To create this new society, we must present
outstretched and friendly hands, without hatred
and rancor, even as we show great determination
and never waver in the defense of truth and
justice. Because we know that we cannot sow
seeds with clenched fists. To sow we must
open our hands.
-- Adolfo
Perez Esquivel
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"...In
a world riven by inequity, medicine could
be viewed as social justice work." -- Paul
Farmer
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"Next
in importance to freedom and justice is popular
education, without which neither freedom nor justice
can be permanently maintained."
-- James A. Garfield (1880)
That
alone is wise which is just; that alone is enduring
which is right.
-- Henry George
“Equal
Justice Under The Law.” That is a great goal. But
that goal has not been realized.
-- Justice Arthur Joseph Goldberg
"All
ideologies end up killing people. If you separate
love from nonviolence you turn nonviolence into
an ideology, a gimmick. Structures that are not
inhabited by justice and love have no liberating
or reconciling force, and are never sources of life."
-- Jean Goss
"Never
be discouraged from being an activist because people
tell you that you'll not succeed. You have already
succeeded if you're out there representing truth
or justice or compassion or fairness or love."
~ Doris Haddock (Granny D)
"Peace
is the absence of war, but beyond that peace is
a commodity unlike any other. Peace is security.
Peace is a mindset. Peace is a way of living. Peace
is the capacity to transcend past hurts -- to break
cycles of violence and forge new pathways that say,
“I would like to make sure we live as a community
where there is justice, security, and development
for all members.” At the end of the day, peace is
an investment; it is something you create by investing
in a way of life and monitoring where your resources
go."
-- Noeleen Heyzer
"If
people have moral courage to stand up to the smallest
injustice – their own and other’s – it’s kind of
like practice for when the big ones come around."
-- Colleen Kelly
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It
is from the numberless diverse acts of courage
and belief that human history is shaped. Each
time a man stands up for an ideal or acts
to improve the lot of others or strikes out
against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple
of hope, and crossing each other from a million
different centers of energy and daring, those
ripples build a current that can sweep down
the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.
-- Robert
F. Kennedy
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"The
hope of a secure and livable world lies with
disciplined nonconformists who are dedicated
to justice, peace and brotherhood."
--
Martin
Luther King, Jr
Injustice
anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
We are caught in an inescapable network of
mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.
Whatever affects one directly, affects all
indirectly.
-- Martin
Luther King, Jr
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"We
have ancient habits to deal with, vast structures
of power, indescribably complicated problems to
solve. But unless we abdicate our humanity altogether
and succumb to fear and impotence in the presence
of the weapons we have ourselves created, it is
as possible and as urgent to put an end to war and
violence between nations as it is to put an end
to poverty and racial injustice."
-- Martin
Luther King Jr (1929-1968)
One
who breaks an unjust law that conscience tells him
is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty
of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience
of the community over its injustice, is in reality
expressing the highest respect for law.
-- Martin
Luther King Jr
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"Peace
does not fare well where poverty and deprivation
reign. It does not flourish where there is ignorance
and a lack of education and information. Repression,
injustice and exploitation are inimical with
peace. Peace is gravely threatened by inter-group
fear and envy and by the unleashing of unrealistic
expectations. Racial, class and religious intolerance
and prejudice are its mortal enemies."
-- Frederik
W. de Klerk |
"Forgiveness
is primarily for our own sake, so that we no longer
carry the burden of resentment. But to forgive does
not mean we will allow injustice again."
--Jack Kornfield
Peace
is more important than all justice; and peace was
not made for the sake of justice, but justice for
the sake of peace.
-- Martin Luther
"It
is not from reason that justice springs, but goodness
is born of wisdom."
-- Maurice Maeterlinck
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"If
we want to reap the harvest of peace and justice
in the future, we will have to sow seeds of
nonviolence, here and now, in the present."
-- Mairead
Corrigan Maguire
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Overcoming
poverty is not a gesture of charity. It is
an act of justice. It is the protection of
a fundamental human right, the right to dignity
and a decent life . . .
--
Nelson
Mandela
"Trade
justice for the developing world and for this
generation is a truly significant way for
the developed countries to show commitment
to bringing about an end to global poverty."
-- Nelson
Mandela
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It
is a good moment to repeat that a war is never
won. Never mind that history books tell us
the opposite. The psychological and material
costs of war are so high that any triumph
is a pyrrhic victory. Only peace can be won
and winning peace means not only avoiding
armed conflict but finding ways of eradicating
the causes of individual and collective violence:
injustice and oppression, ignorance and poverty,
intolerance and discrimination. We must construct
a new set of values and attitudes to replace
the culture of war which, for centuries, has
been influencing the course of civilization.
Winning peace means the triumph of our pledge
to establish, on a democratic basis, a new
social framework of tolerance and generosity
from which no one will feel excluded.
-- Federico
Mayor
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An
injustice committed against anyone is a threat to
everyone.
-- Montesquieu
”Man's
capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but
man's inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary.”
-- Reinhold Niebuhr
Racial
injustice, war, urban blight, and environmental
rape have a common denominator in our exploitative
economic system.
~ Channing E. Phillips
In
the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (December
1948) in most solemn form, the dignity of a person
is acknowledged to all human beings; and as a consequence
there is proclaimed, as a fundamental right, the
right of free movement in search for truth and in
the attainment of moral good and of justice, and
also the right to a dignified life.
-- Pope John XXIII, 1881-1963 Pacem in Terris, 1963
Let
us not accept violence as the way of peace. Let
us instead begin by respecting true freedom: the
resulting peace will be able to satisfy the world's
expectations, for it will be a peace built on justice,
a peace founded on the incomparable dignity of the
free human being.
-- Pope John Paul II
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We
are privileged to have the opportunity of
contributing to the achievement of the goal
of the abolition of war and its replacement
by world law. I am confident that we shall
succeed in this great task; that the world
community will thereby be freed not only from
the suffering caused by war but also through
the better use of the earth's resources, of
the discoveries of scientists, and of the
efforts of mankind, from hunger, disease,
illiteracy, and fear; and that we shall in
the course of time be enabled to build a world
characterized by economic, political, and
social justice for all human beings and a
culture worthy of man's intelligence.
-- Linus
Pauling
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Where,
after all, do universal human rights begin?
In small places, close to home - so close
and so small that they cannot be seen on
any maps of the world ... Such are the places
where every man, woman and child seeks equal
justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity
without discrimination. Unless these rights
have meaning there, they have little meaning
anywhere.
-- Eleanor
Roosevelt
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It
is often easier to become outraged by injustice
half a world away than by oppression and discrimination
half a block from home.
-- Carl T. Rowan
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"The
primary threat to nature and people today
comes from centralising and monopolising power
and control. Not until diversity is made the
logic of production will there be a chance
for sustainability, justice and peace. Cultivating
and conserving diversity is no luxury in our
times: it is a survival imperative."
~ Vandana
Shiva
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Peace
is not an absence of war, it is a virtue, a state
of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence,
justice.
-- Benedict Spinoza (1632-1677)
War
crushes with bloody heel all justice, all happiness,
all that is Godlike in man. In our age there can
be no peace that is not honorable; there can be
no war that is not dishonorable.
-- Charles Sumner
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The
Universal Declaration of Human Rights - This
great and inspiring instrument was born of
an increased sense of responsibility by the
international community for the promotion
and protection of man’s basic rights and freedoms.
The world has come to a clear realization
of the fact that freedom, justice and world
peace can only be assured through the international
promotion and protection of these rights and
freedoms.
-- U
Thant, Third United Nations Secretary-General,
1961-1971
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Courage,
it would seem, is nothing less than the power to
overcome danger, misfortune, fear, injustice, while
continuing to affirm inwardly that life with all
its sorrows is good; that everything is meaningful
even if in a sense beyond our understanding; and
that there is always tomorrow.
-- Dorothy Thompson
"All
who affirm the use of violence admit it is only
a means to achieve justice and peace. But peace
and justice are nonviolence...the final end of history.
Those who abandon nonviolence have no sense of history.
Rathy they are bypassing history, freezing history,
betraying history."
-- André Trocmé
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"If
you are neutral in situations of injustice,
you have chosen the side of the oppressor."
--Archbishop
Desmond Tutu
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An
act of justice closes the book on a misdeed; an
act of vengeance writes one of its own
-- Marilyn Vos Savant
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We
desire peace - and that is why we have never
resorted to physical force. We crave for justice
- and that is why we are so persistent in
the struggle for our rights. We seek freedom
of convictions - and that is why we have never
attempted to enslave man's conscience, nor
shall we ever attempt to do so. We are fighting
for the right of the working people to association
and for the dignity of human labor. We respect
the dignity and the rights of every man and
every nation. The path to a brighter future
of the world leads through honest reconciliation
of the conflicting interests and not through
hatred and bloodshed. To follow that path
means to enhance the moral power of the all-embracing
idea of human solidarity.
-- Lech
Walesa
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"Observe
good faith
and justice toward all nations. Cultivate peace
and harmony with all."
-- George Washington
I
love life and want to hold onto it. But my passion
for justice for my tormented people, for their dignity
and freedom, must be greater still. For of what
value is a life of slavery, of humiliation and
contempt for that which you hold most dear: Your
identity! I will therefore not give in to the Turkish
Inquisition.
-- Leyla Zana
