“Without justice and love, peace will always be a great illusion.”
1960s, Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? (1967)
Context: Power properly understood is nothing but the ability to achieve purpose. It is the strength required to bring about social, political and economic change. … Now a lot of us are preachers, and all of us have our moral convictions and concerns, and so often have problems with power. There is nothing wrong with power if power is used correctly. You see, what happened is that some of our philosophers got off base. And one of the great problems of history is that the concepts of love and power have usually been contrasted as opposites — polar opposites — so that love is identified with a resignation of power, and power with a denial of love.
It was this misinterpretation that caused Nietzsche, who was a philosopher of the will to power, to reject the Christian concept of love. It was this same misinterpretation which induced Christian theologians to reject the Nietzschean philosophy of the will to power in the name of the Christian idea of love. Now, we've got to get this thing right. What is needed is a realization that power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love. And this is what we must see as we move on. What has happened is that we have had it wrong and confused in our own country, and this has led Negro Americans in the past to seek their goals through power devoid of love and conscience.
This is leading a few extremists today to advocate for Negroes the same destructive and conscienceless power that they have justly abhorred in whites. It is precisely this collision of immoral power with powerless morality which constitutes the major crisis of our times.
Letter accepting the Republican nomination to run for President (12 July 1880)
1880s
Variant: Next in importance to freedom and justice is popular education, without which neither freedom nor justice can be permanently maintained.
“Justice without force is powerless; force without justice is tyrannical.”
Montgomery Bus Boycott speech, at Holt Street Baptist Church (5 December 1955) http://www.blackpast.org/?q=1955-martin-luther-king-jr-montgomery-bus-boycott
1950s
Context: Whatever we do, we must keep God in the forefront. Let us be Christian in all of our actions. But I want to tell you this evening that it is not enough for us to talk about love, love is one of the pivotal points of the Christian face, faith. There is another side called justice. And justice is really love in calculation. Justice is love correcting that which revolts against love.
“One can give without loving, but one cannot love without giving”
A Chance to Die.The life and Legacy of Amy Carmichael, Elisabeth Elliot, Revell, 1987.
“There is no freedom without justice.”
Although this maxim is associated with Wiesenthal (e.g. "Honoring Simon Wiesenthal", Congressional Record—House, Vol. 151, Pt. 15, 21 September 2005, p. 20804), he did not originate the quote, which appears in the context of the labor movement in the 19th century (e.g. Alexander Spencer, "Maintain Your Union", The Typographical Journal, Vol. 10, No. 7, 1 April 1897, p. 266).
Misattributed
“We may often give without love, but we can never love without giving.”
Quotations from Gurudev’s teachings, Chinmya Mission Chicago
Letter to his wife (Congo, My Country)
