justification Quotes

“An assassin lives an honorable life.”

“I am afeard there are few die well that die in a battle, for how can they charitably dispose of anything, when blood is their argument? Now, if these men do not die well, it will be a black matter for the king that led them to it, who to disobey were against all proportion of subjection.”

″ It shows you that when people have left a reproachful vacancy in a contract they can be as shady about it in Bibles as elsewhere.”

“But also because the underlying struggle - between worlds of plenty and worlds of want; between the modern and the ancient; between those who embrace our teeming, colliding, irksome diversity, while still insisting on a set of values that binds us together, and those who would seek, under whatever flag or slogan or sacred text, a certainty and simplification that justifies cruelty toward those not like us...”

“The less justified a man is in claiming excellence for his own self, the more ready is he to claim all excellence for his nation, his religion, his race or his holy cause.”

“You don’t need to justify your love, you don’t need to explain your love, you just need to practice your love. Practice creates the master.”

“Some people might say, well, what business is it of Frank Ross to meddle? My answer is this: he was trying to do that short devil a good turn. Chaney was a tenant and Papa felt responsibility. He was his brother’s keeper. Does that answer your question?”

“I enjoy my work; sorry if that bothers you. Oh, very sorry, really. But there it is. And it’s not just any killing, of course. It has to be done the right way, at the right time, with the right partner—very complicated, but very necessary.”

“It ain’t no murder killing beasts like that.”

“Men are not justified by calling those actions involuntary, which are done by reason of Anger or Lust.”

“More hateful still the miscreant who seeks When caught, to make a virtue of a crime.”

“O, then my best blood turn To an infected jelly and my name Be yoked with his that did betray the Best! Turn then my freshest reputation to A savour that may strike the dullest nostril Where I arrive, and my approach be shunn’d, Nay, hated too, worse than the great’st infection That e’er was heard or read!”

“This is the nature of war, whose stake is at once the game and the authority and the justification.”

“In a way we’re like a revolutionary group-repossessing society by violence. It’s inevitable. Violence is no stranger to you. You’ve killed. Many times.”

“That’s exactly why we’re killing... to survive. We can’t allow the dead to exist beside the living. Their brains are impaired, they exist for only one purpose. They have to be destroyed.”

“Good. Tonight, after you were gone, I thought a lot. About you and how you’ve been treating me and I thought, “Why do I love you?” And then, I felt everything in me just let go of everything I was holding onto so tightly. And it hit me that I don’t have an intellectual reason. I don’t need one. I trust myself, I trust my feelings. I’m not gonna try to be anything other than who I am anymore and I hope you can accept that.”

“In the era of colorblindness, it is no longer socially permissible to use race, explicitly, as a justification for discrimination, exclusion, and social contempt. So we don’t. Rather than rely on race, we use our criminal justice system to label people of color “criminals” and then engage in all the practices we supposedly left behind.”

“If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind.”

“The homogenizing of European man... requires a justification: it lies in serving a higher sovereign species that stands upon the former which can raise itself to its task only by doing this.”

“There is no need to justify your existence. You do not need to write or preach to justify yourselves, for instance. Being is its own justification.”

“To do evil a human being must first of all believe that what he’s doing is good, or else that it’s a well-considered act in conformity with natural law. Fortunately, it is in the nature of the human being to seek a justification for his actions. ”

“I dragged that filthy thing out of the river muck in South America, and along the way we didn’t get to like each other much. You may think that thing looks human, stands on two legs right? But we’re created in the Lord’s image. You don’t think that’s what the Lord looks like?”

“It was only in the fairy tales that people were called upon to be so brave, to die for one another. Not in real-life Denmark.”

″‘Jesus,’ I whisper finally, ‘which do you want me to do? Be one hundred percent honest and carry that dog back to Judd so that one of your creatures can be kicked and starved all over again, or keep him here and fatten him up to glorify your creation?‘”

“Actors were like oysters, she explained when anyone wanted justification for this emotional brutality. You had to crack their shells open to find the precious pearls inside.”

“Finally, James broke the silence. ‘She probably figured she could be angry and mean to us and get away with it,’ he said. ‘Because we’re kids.‘”

“Somebody should kill Bowdon. Simon tried to think of a good reason for not killing Bowdon. Bowdon’s mother would cry? Simon doubted it.”

″‘I must be good,’ he whispered urgently. ‘I must be good,’ and he rubbed a sore spot on his arm. He was such a bad boy. Mum said she was kinder to him than most mothers. She only gave him soft beatings.”

“With this excellent resolve for the future, Goodman Brown felt himself justified in making more haste on his present evil purpose. ”

“Silas could feel his homeland testing him, drawing violent memories from his redeemed soul. You have been reborn, he reminded himself. His service to God today had required the sin of murder, and it was a sacrifice Silas knew he would have to hold silently in his heart for all eternity.”

″‘Possibly you were responding to unconscious stereotypes of black men as large, threatening, dangerous?’ ‘No. I acted with just cause.‘”

“Now Lorraine can blame all the other things on me, but she was the one who picked out the Pigman’s phone number. If you ask me, I think he would have died anyway. Maybe we speeded things up a little, but you really can’t say we murdered him.”

“We have seen murder, theft, and pillage in the name of the Republic- and call it the necessary price we pay for freedom.”

“They were all so busy: and after all, no one had said she mustn’t. Beth would like to see Rita’s necklace... and Rita’s look said she would like Lexie to wear it for her, when she went to stay with the Malleys.”

“If I can keep out of his way for a few days, he’ll forget all about it. And he did laugh- afterwards. Maybe he wasn’t so very angry after all, maybe it was just the sun that made his eyes look like that.”

″‘Many atrocities,’ Rhys purred, ‘have been done in the name of the greater good.‘”

“It’s like eating everything on your plate ’cause you think someone else won’t go hungry if you don’t. You’re not helping anyone but yourself.”

I say, and proclaim it publicly, that you were justified in revenging yourself on my father, and I, his son, thank you for not using greater severity.

“Nelly, I see now you think me a selfish wretch; but did it never strike you that if Heathcliff and I married, we should be beggars? whereas, if I marry Linton I can aid Heathcliff to rise, and place him out of my brother’s power.”

“One should never do anything that one cannot talk about after dinner.

“But shucks! Your mother won’t know, and so what’s the harm? All she wants is that you’ll be safe; and I bet you she’d ‘a’ said go there if she’d ‘a’ thought of it. I know she would!”