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Written by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Nobel Peace Prize 1964
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Cowardice asks the question - is it safe? Expediency asks the question - is it politic? Vanity asks the question - is it popular? But conscience asks the question - is it right? And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular; but one must take it because it is right. |
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Written by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Nobel Peace Prize 1964
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"A time comes when silence is betrayal. Men do not easily assume the task of opposing their government's policy, especially in time of war. We must speak with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak. For we are deeply in need of a new way beyond the darkness so close around us... We are called upon to speak for the weak, for the voiceless, for the victims of our nation, for those it calls enemy, for no document from human hands can make these humans any less our brothers." |
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Written by Pope John Paul II “Veritatis Splendor”
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“the Church teaches that "there exist acts which per se and in themselves, independently of circumstances, are always seriously wrong by reason of their object". Whatever violates the integrity of the human person, such as mutilation, physical and mental torture and attempts to coerce the spirit; whatever is offensive to human dignity” “all these and the like are a disgrace, and so long as they infect human civilization they contaminate those who inflict them more than those who suffer injustice, and they are a negation of the honour due to the Creator" |
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Written by Dali Lama
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“The question of justice is closely connected with both universal responsibility and the question of honesty. Justice entails a requirement to act when we become aware of injustice” |
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Written by The Koran
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“You must stand up for justice even against yourself” |
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Written by Elie Wiesel
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"Who is guilty? Those who commit these crimes. But to the question, 'Who is responsible?' we are compelled to say: Aren't we all?" |
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Written by Rabbi Hillel
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"If I am not for myself, then who will be for me? And if I am only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?" |
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Written by Alexander Solzhenitsyn
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“When we torture we are departing downward from humanity” |
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Written by Karen Greenberg
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“Power without morality is a prescription for disaster” |
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Written by Voltaire
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“Those who can make you believe absurdities will get you to commit atrocities” |
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Written by John McCain
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“This is not about who they are, this is about who we are” |
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Written by Cicero
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“The course of the examination under torture is steered by pain, is controlled by individual qualities of mind and body, is directed by the president of the court, is diverted by caprice, tainted by hope, invalidated by fear and the result is that in all these straights there is no room left for the truth”
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Written by Aristotle
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“Evidence from torture may be considered completely untrustworthy”
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Written by Voltaire, Treatise on Tolerance 1763
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"This little globe, which is no more than a point, rolls, together with many other globes, in that immensity of space in which we are lost. Man, who is about five feet high, is certainly a very inconsiderable part of the creation; but one of those hardly visible beings says to some of his neighbors in Arabia or South Africa: Listen to me, for the God of all these worlds has enlightened me. There are about nine hundred millions of us little insects who inhabit the earth, but my ant-hill alone is cherished by God who holds all the rest in horror for all eternity; those who live with me upon my spot will alone be happy, and all the rest eternally wretched."
They would stop me and ask, "What madman could have made so foolish a speech?" I should then be obliged to answer them, "It is yourselves."
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Written by Matthew Alexander, leader of an interrogations team assigned to a Special Operations task force in Iraq in 2006
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"Torture and abuse cost American lives...I learned in Iraq that the No. 1 reason foreign fighters flocked there to fight were the abuses carried out at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. Our policy of torture was directly and swiftly recruiting fighters for al-Qaeda in Iraq...How anyone can say that torture keeps Americans safe is beyond me -- unless you don't count American soldiers as Americans." |
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Written by Mark Danner
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“What we can say with certainty, in the wake of the Red Cross report, is that the United States tortured prisoners and that the Bush administration, including the president himself, explicitly and aggressively denied that fact. We can also say that the decision to torture, in a political war with militant Islam, harmed American interests by destroying the democratic and Constitutional reputation of the United States, undermining its liberal sympathizers in the Muslim world and helping materially in the recruitment of young Muslims to the extremist cause. By deciding to torture, we freely chose to embrace the caricature they had made of us. The consequences of this choice, legal, political and moral, now confront us. Time and elections are not enough to make them go away.” |
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Written by Glenn Greenwald
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"This is precisely how the character of a country becomes fundamentally degraded when it becomes a state in permanent war. So continuous are the inhumane and brutal acts of government leaders that the citizens completely lose the capacity for moral outrage and horror. The permanent claims of existential threats from an endless array of enemies means that secrecy is paramount, accountability is deemed a luxury, and National Security trumps every other consideration -- even including basic liberties and the rule of law. Worst of all, the President takes on the attributes of a protector-deity who can and must never be questioned lest we prevent him from keeping us safe." |
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Quotes