United States ex rel. Caminito v. Murphy, 222 F.2d 698, 706 (1955).
“One of the tests of the civilization of people is the treatment of its criminals.”
Rutherford B. Hayes (1822–1893) American politician, 19th President of the United States (in office from 1877 to 1881)
Diary (30 October 1892)
Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1922 - 1926)
“The test of a civilization is in the way that it cares for its helpless members”
Pearl S. Buck (1892–1973) American writer
“The test of the morality of a society is what it does for its children.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) German Lutheran pastor, theologian, dissident anti-Nazi
Variant: The ultimate test of a moral society is the kind of world that it leaves to its children.
Bernard E. Rollin (1943) American philosopher
"The Legal and Moral Bases of Animal Rights", in Ethics and Animals, edited by Harlan B. Miller and William H. Williams (Clifton, NJ: Humana Press, 1983), p. 118 https://books.google.it/books?id=JBPlBwAAQBAJ&pg=PA118.
John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America
"LOOK Magazine Article 'The Arts in America' (552)" (18 December 1962) http://www.jfklibrary.org/Research/Research-Aids/Ready-Reference/JFK-Quotations.aspx; also inscribed at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Washington, D.C. <br class="br">1962
“There is a moral obligation, I think, not to ally oneself with power against the powerless.”
Chinua Achebe (1930–2013) Nigerian novelist, poet, professor, and critic
Source: There Was a Country: A Personal History of Biafra
Milan Kundera book The Unbearable Lightness of Being
The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1984), as quoted in Milan Kundera (2003) by Harold Bloom, [//books.google.it/books?id=SXDojRJFMPIC&pg=PA91 p. 91]
Context: True human goodness, in all its purity and freedom, can come to the fore only when its recipient has no power. Mankind's true moral test, its fundamental test (which lies deeply buried from view), consists of its attitude toward those who are at its mercy: animals. And in this respect mankind has suffered a fundamental debacle, a debacle so fundamental that all others stem from it.
John Howard Yoder (1927–1997) 20th century American Mennonite theologian
Source: The Priestly Kingdom (1984), p. 138
