#mina

...the big things - how we think, what we value - those you must choose yourself. You can't let anyone - or any society - determine those for you. ↗

— Mitch Albom

#self-determination #values

Look at how a single candle can both defy and define the darkness. ↗

— Anne Frank

#darkness #illumination #dark

There is no client as scary as an innocent man." J. Michael Haller, Criminal Defense Attorney, Los Angeles, 1962. ↗

— Michael Connelly

#clients #criminal-law #fear #guilt #innocence

The only things you learn are the things you tame ↗

— Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

#education #learning #persistence #education

There is no ideal world for you to wait around for. The world is always just what it is now, and it's up to you how you respond to it. ↗

— Isaac Marion

#body

It will never rain roses: when we want to have more roses, we must plant more roses. ↗

— George Eliot

#initiative #positivity #rose

I am convinced that imprisonment is a way of pretending to solve the problem of crime. It does nothing for the victims of crime, but perpetuates the idea of retribution, thus maintaining the endless cycle of violence in our culture. It is a cruel and useless substitute for the elimination of those conditions--poverty, unemployment, homelessness, desperation, racism, greed--which are at the root of most punished crime. The crimes of the rich and powerful go mostly unpunished. It must surely be a tribute to the resilience of the human spirit that even a small number of those men and women in the hell of the prison system survive it and hold on to their humanity. ↗

— Howard Zinn

#criminal-justice-system #cycle-of-violence #desperation #greed #homelessness

Desires dictate our priorities, priorities shape our choices, and choices determine our actions. ↗

— Dallin H. Oaks

#choices #priorities #determination

The government is merely a servant -- merely a temporary servant; it cannot be its prerogative to determine what is right and what is wrong, and decide who is a patriot and who isn't. Its function is to obey orders, not originate them. ↗

— Mark Twain

#determination

I don't entirely approve of some of the things I have done, or am, or have been. But I'm me. God knows, I'm me. ↗

— Elizabeth Taylor

#self-esteem #determination