[ Laman Ehwal Semasa ReformIS ]
Date: 16 Aug 1999
Time: 02:51:20
Remote User: -
Quotations for reformers
Some inspirational quotations from various places to help those of us working for a better Malaysian future.
"In no sense do I advocate evading or defying the law ... That would lead to anarchy. An individual who breaks a law that his 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.
"If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet deprecate agitation are people who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightening. That struggle might be a moral one; it might be a physical one; it might be both moral and physical, but it must be struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and never will. People might not get all that they work for in this world, but they must certainly work for all they get." Frederick Douglas, Abolitionist, 1857
To tyrannize for the country is to tyrannize over the country. Tagore
In Germany they came first for the Communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time no one was left to speak up. Martin Niemoeller, German Lutheran Pastor (1892-1984)
If you make yourself a floorcloth, people will wipe their feet on you. Creole proverb, British Honduras
Freedom is not something that anybody can be given; freedom is something people take and people are as free as they want to be. James Baldwin, "Notes For a Hypothetical Novel," Nobody Knows My Name, 1961
Disobedience, in the eyes of any one who has read history, is man's original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made, through disobedience and through rebellion. Oscar Wilde, 1895
It is the duty of every good citizen to point out what he thinks erroneous in the commonwealth. James Otis, 1764
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. Edward Abbey
What has commonly been called rebellion has more often been nothing but a glorious struggle in opposition to the lawless power of rebellious kings and princes. Sam Adams (Patriot and Brewer), 1776
The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed. Steve Biko
The man who fights for his ideals is the man who is alive. Cervantes
The dying order always likes to give a few kicks before it goes down. Banazir Bhutto, 1989
You can only protect your liberties in this world by protecting the other man's freedom. You can only be free if I am free. Clarence Darrow
A single bracelet does not jingle Congo proverb
He who says it cannot be done should get out of the way of the one who is doing it. Chinese Proverb
United jaws crush the bone Kigezi proverb, southwest Uganda
Cross the river in a crowd and the crocodile won't eat you. proverb from Madagascar
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.Martin Luther King, Jr. Letter from a Birmingham Jail
The hottest places in hell are reserved for whose who, in a period of moral crisis, maintain their neutrality. Dante Alighieri
Who struggles can fail. Who doesn't struggle has already failed! - Bertolt Brecht
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 then to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice. Martin Luther King Jr., Letter from the Birmingham Jail, Alabama, April 16, 1963
The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands in times of challenge and controversy Martin Luther King, Jr., Strength to Love, 1963
Loyalty to petrified opinions never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul in this world-and never will. Mark Twain (1835-1910), U.S. author. Consistency, paper, read in Hartford, Connecticut, 1884 (published in 1923; reprinted. in Complete Essays, ed. Charles Neider, 1963).
What the public wants is called 'politically unrealistic.' Translated into English, that means power and privilege are opposed to it. Noam Chomsky
Any excuse will serve a tyrant. Aesop, The Wolf and the Lamb
Loss of freedom seldom happens overnight. Oppression doesn't stand on the doorstep with toothbrush mustache and swastika armband - it creeps up insidiously . . . step by step, and all of a sudden the unfortunate citizen realizes that it is gone. Baron Lane, British judge, Lord Chief Justice of England. Quoted in: Independent (London, Feb. 3, 1990), referring to proposed legal reforms.
You more likely regret that you hadn't spoke up - then what you said. Ronald J. Neroda (10-97)
Take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Elie Wiesel, Nobel Peace Prize winner and survivor of a Nazi concentration camp
Action springs not from thought, but from a readiness for esponsibility Dietrich Bonhoffer
My interest is in the future because I am going to spend the rest of my life there. Charles F. Kettering
When spiders unite, they can tie down a lion. Ethiopian Proverb
"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an