The "trickle-down" theory: the principle that the poor, who must subsist on table scraps dropped by the rich, can best be served by giving the rich bigger meals.

- William Blum

The best safeguard against fascism is to establish social justice to the maximum extent possible.

- Arnold Toynbee

That is true culture which helps us to work for the social betterment of all.

- Henry Ward Beecher

Justice is never given; it is exacted and the struggle must be continuous for freedom is never a final fact, but a continuing evolving process to higher and higher levels of human, social, economic, political and religious relationship.

- A. Philip Randolph

The sword of murder is not the balance of justice.

- Julia Ward Howe

Don't wait for the Last Judgment. It happens every day.

- Albert Camus

Truth never damages a cause that is just.

- Mohandas K. Gandhi

One of the most powerful, and deeply spiritual, ways to work for social change is for us to take action in the present that embodies -- right now! -- the future vision that we seek

- Rabbi Arthur Ocean Waskow

A weak man is just by accident. A strong but nonviolent man is unjust by accident.

- Mohandas K. Gandhi

Violence as a way of achieving racial justice is both impractical and immoral. It is impractical because it is a descending spiral ending in destruction for all. The old law of an eye for an eye leaves everybody blind. It is immoral because it seeks to humiliate the opponent rather than win his understanding; it seeks to annihilate rather than to convert. Violence is immoral because it thrives on hatred rather than love. It destroys community and makes brotherhood impossible. It leaves society in monologue rather than dialogue. Violence ends by defeating itself. It creates bitterness in the survivors and brutality in the destroyers.

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals.

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world's grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly, now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.

- Rabbi Tarfon

Liberals are not unconcerned with economic liberty, but they have come to believe that the common good requires that social justice be given a higher priority than absolute economic freedom.

- Robert S. McElvaine

For these are all our children. We will all profit by, or pay for, whatever they become,

- James Baldwin

Compassion is not sentiment but is making justice and doing works of mercy. Compassion is not a moral commandment but a flow and overflow of the fullest human and divine energies.

- Matthew Fox

The rain is famous for falling on the just and unjust alike, but if I had the management of such affairs I would rain softly and sweetly on the just, but if I caught a sample of the unjust out doors I would drown him.

- Mark Twain



Transformation is only valid if it is carried out with the people, not for them. Liberation is like a childbirth, and a painful one. The person who emerges is a new person: no longer either oppressor or oppressed, but a person in the process of achieving freedom. It is only the oppressed who, by freeing themselves, can free their oppressors.

- Paulo Freire



Values are not just words, values are what we live by. They're about the causes that we champion and the people we fight for.

- John Kerry



I believe in the equality of man; and I believe that religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavoring to make our fellow creatures happy.

- Thomas Paine



In nature there are neither rewards nor punishments; there are only consequences.

- Robert G. Ingersoll



A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. On the one hand, we are called to play the Good Samaritan on life's roadside, but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho Road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life's highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.

- Martin Luther King, Jr.



We have before us the glorious opportunity to inject a new dimension of love into the veins of our civilization,

- Martin Luther King, Jr.



We hold the moral obligation of providing for old age, helpless infancy, and poverty is far superior to that of supplying the invented wants of courtly extravagance.

- Thomas Paine



As long as justice and injustice have not terminated their ever renewing fight for ascendancy in the affairs of mankind, human beings must be willing, when need is, to do battle for the one against the other.

- John Stuart Mill



Man's capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man's inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary.

- Reinhold Niebuhr



I am not interested in picking up crumbs of compassion thrown from the table of someone who considers himself my master. I want the full menu of rights.

- Bishop Desmond Tutu



Until the infallibility of human judgment shall have been proved to me, I shall persist in demanding the abolition of the death penalty.

- Marquis de Lafayette



Peace is not the absence of war but the presence of justice.

- Harrison Ford



Revenge has no more quenching effect on emotions than salt water has on thirst.

- Walter Weckler



There are genuinely sufficient resources in the world to ensure that no one, nowhere, at no time, should go hungry.

- Ed Asner



Is there equality before the law? At every stage of the judicial process--facing the policeman, appearing in court, being freed on bond, being sentenced by the judge--the poor person is treated worse than the rich, the black treated worse than the white, the politically or personally odd character is treated worse than the orthodox.

- Howard Zinn



Our opponents in the agricultural industry are very powerful and farm workers are still weak in money and influence. But we have another kind of power that comes from the justice of our cause. So long as we are willing to sacrifice for that cause, so long as we persist in non-violence and work to spread the message of our struggle, then millions of people around the world will respond from their heart, will support our efforts ... and in the end we will overcome.

- Cesar Chavez



A hungry people listens not to reason, nor cares for justice, nor is bent by any prayers.

- Seneca



There are two ways of exerting one's strength: one is pushing down, the other is pulling up.

- Booker T. Washington



The earth is ready, the time is ripe, for the authoritative expression of the feminine as well as the masculine interpretation of that common social consensus which is slowly writing justice in the State and fraternity in the social order.

- Anna Garlin Spencer



In the adjustment of the new order of things, we women demand an equal voice; we shall accept nothing less.

- Carrie Chapman Catt



Self-respect knows no considerations.

- Mohandas K. Gandhi



There is no such thing as a single-issue struggle because we do not live single-issue lives.

- Audre Lorde



The right way is not always the popular and easy way. Standing for right when it is unpopular is a true test of moral character.

- Margaret Chase Smith



Compassion is a foundation for sharing our aliveness and building a more humane world.

- Martin Lowenthal



If the earth does grow inhospitable toward human presence, it is primarily because we have lost our sense of courtesy toward the earth and its inhabitants.

- Thomas Berry



The people are craving for a better world. Let us mobilize them as co-workers for a better world.

- Robert Muller



Also quoted as: "An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind." or "An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind."

- Mohandas K. Gandhi



We must not allow ourselves to become like the system we oppose.

- Bishop Desmond Tutu



All who affirm the use of violence admit it is only a means to achieve justice and peace. But peace and justice are nonviolence...the final end of history. Those who abandon nonviolence have no sense of history. Rather they are bypassing history, freezing history, betraying history.

- Andre Trocme