Jacque Fresco (1916–2017) American futurist and self-described social engineer
Source: The Best That Money Can't Buy: Beyond Politics, Poverty, & War (2002), p. 33.
Source: Dreaming the Dark: Magic, Sex and Politics (1982), Ch. 3 : The Ethics of Magic, p. 41
Context: To live with integrity in an unjust society we must work for justice. To walk with integrity through a landscape strewn with beer cans, we must stop and pick them up.
Jacque Fresco (1916–2017) American futurist and self-described social engineer
Source: The Best That Money Can't Buy: Beyond Politics, Poverty, & War (2002), p. 33.
“There is no justice in following unjust laws.”
Aaron Swartz (1986–2013) computer programmer and internet-political activist
Guerilla Open Access Manifesto (July 2008) http://archive.org/details/GuerillaOpenAccessManifesto. <br class="br">Context: There is no justice in following unjust laws. It’s time to come into the light and, in the grand tradition of civil disobedience, declare our opposition to this private theft of public culture.<br>We need to take information, wherever it is stored, make our copies and share them with the world. We need to take stuff that's out of copyright and add it to the archive. We need to buy secret databases and put them on the Web. We need to download scientific journals and upload them to file sharing networks. We need to fight for Guerilla Open Access.<br>With enough of us, around the world, we’ll not just send a strong message opposing the privatization of knowledge — we’ll make it a thing of the past. Will you join us?
Ho Chi Minh (1890–1969) Vietnamese communist leader and first president of Vietnam
"To Practice Thrift and Oppose Embezzlement (1952)
1950's
“God's justice and His power are inseparable; 'tis in vain we invoke His power in an unjust cause.”
Michel De Montaigne book Essays
Book I, Ch. 56. Of Prayers
Essais (1595), Book I
Context: God's justice and His power are inseparable; 'tis in vain we invoke His power in an unjust cause. We are to have our souls pure and clean, at that moment at least wherein we pray to Him, and purified from all vicious passions; otherwise we ourselves present Him the rods wherewith to chastise us; instead of repairing anything we have done amiss, we double the wickedness and the offence when we offer to Him, to whom we are to sue for pardon, an affection full of irreverence and hatred. Which makes me not very apt to applaud those whom I observe to be so frequent on their knees, if the actions nearest to the prayer do not give me some evidence of amendment and reformation
“[Peace must be] founded on truth, built according to justice, vivified and integrated by charity, and put into practice in freedom.”
[Pacem esse] dicimus in veritate positam, ad iustitiae praecepta constitutam, caritate altam et expletam, libertate postremo auspice effectam.
Pope John XXIII Pacem in Terris
Pacem in Terris (11 April 1963), ¶ 167
“To be wealthy and honored in an unjust society is a disgrace.”
Confucius (-551–-479 BC) Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher
Source: The Analects
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement
1960s, How Long, Not Long (1965)
Context: I must admit to you that there are still jail cells waiting for us, and dark and difficult moments. But if we will go on with the faith that nonviolence and its power can transform dark yesterdays into bright tomorrows, we will be able to change all of these conditions. And so I plead with you this afternoon as we go ahead: remain committed to nonviolence. Our aim must never be to defeat or humiliate the white man, but to win his friendship and understanding. We must come to see that the end we seek is a society at peace with itself, a society that can live with its conscience. And that will be a day not of the white man, not of the black man. That will be the day of man as man.
Coretta Scott King (1927–2006) American author, activist, and civil rights leader. Wife of Martin Luther King, Jr.
Chicago Sun Times (1 April 1998)
Dan Quayle (1947) American politician, lawyer
Speech to the Commonwealth Club of California (19 May 1992)
Commonwealth Club speech