#indignation

Men are excessively ruthless and cruel not as a rule out of malice but from outraged righteousness. How much more is this true of legally constituted states, invested with all this seeming moral authority of parliaments and congresses and courts of justice! The destructive capacity of an individual, however vicious, is small; of the state, however well-intentioned, almost limitless. Expand the state and the destructive capacity necessarily expands too. Collective righteousness is far more ungovernable than any individual pursuit of revenge. That was a point well understood by Woodrow Wilson, who warned: 'Once lead this people into war and they'll forget there ever was such a thing as tolerance. ↗

— Paul Johnson

#indignation #men

I appeal to you, my friends, as mothers: are you willing to enslave your children? You stare back with horror and indignation at such questions. But why, if slavery is not wrong to those upon whom it is imposed? ↗

— Angelina Grimke

#back #children #enslave #friends #horror

Men's indignation, it seems, is more excited by legal wrong than by violent wrong; the first looks like being cheated by an equal, the second like being compelled by a superior. ↗

— Thucydides

#cheated #compelled #equal #excited #first

But love, like the sun that it is, sets afire and melts everything. what greed and privilege to build up over whole centuries the indignation of a pious spirit, with its natural following of oppressed souls, will cast down with a single shove. ↗

— Jose Marti

#build #cast #centuries #down #everything

Man watches his history on the screen with apathy and an occasional passing flicker of horror or indignation. ↗

— Conor Cruise O'Brien

#flicker #his #history #horror #indignation

Moral indignation in most cases is, 2% moral, 48% indignation, and 50% envy. ↗

— Vittorio De Sica

#envy #indignation #moral #most

A man's sentiments are generally just and right, while it is second selfish thought which makes him trim and adopt some other view. The best reforms are worked out when sentiment operates, as it does in women, with the indignation of righteousness. ↗

— Leland Stanford

#best #does #generally #him #indignation

Indignation is a submission of our thoughts, but not of our desires. ↗

— Bertrand Russell

#indignation #our #submission #thoughts

It's freezing up here. What did you use to keep warm?" "Indignation," said Michelangelo. "Best fuel I know. Never burns out. ↗

— Irving Stone

#art #artists #indignation #anger

I've always resented the smug statements of politicians, media commentators, corporate executives who talked of how, in America, if you worked hard you would become rich. The meaning of that was if you were poor it was because you hadn't worked hard enough. I knew this was a lite, about my father and millions of others, men and women who worked harder than anyone, harder than financiers and politicians, harder than anybody if you accept that when you work at an unpleasant job that makes it very hard work indeed. ↗

— Howard Zinn

#falsity-of-the-american-dream #hard-work #indignation-of-the-poor #lies #victim-blaming