“Those who stand idle while evil descends upon another and provides no support, is just as culpable as the perpetrator.”
2006
Related quotes
“He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it.”
Hayne's Speech on Mr. Foot's Resolution, January 21, 1830, page 16.
Bodhicaryavatara, A Guide to the Bodhisattva Way of Life
“Welt muss mehr denn je diese Botschaft hören,” Giessener Allgemeine Zeitung, Giessen, Germany, April 12, 2005.
Attributed
Draft for a Statement of Human Obligation (1943)
Context: The proportions of good and evil in any society depend partly upon the proportion of consent to that of refusal and partly upon the distribution of power between those who consent and those who refuse.
If any power of any kind is in the hands of a man who has not given total, sincere, and enlightened consent to this obligation such power is misplaced.
If a man has willfully refused to consent, then it is in itself a criminal activity for him to exercise any function, major or minor, public or private, which gives him control over people's lives. All those who, with knowledge of his mind, have acquiesced in his exercise of the function are accessories to the crime.
Any State whose whole official doctrine constitutes an incitement to this crime is itself wholly criminal. It can retain no trace of legitimacy.
Any State whose official doctrine is not primarily directed against this crime in all its forms is lacking in full legitimacy.
Any legal system which contains no provisions against this crime is without the essence of legality. Any legal system which provides against some forms of this crime but not others is without the full character of legality.
Any government whose members commit this crime, or authorize it in their subordinates, has betrayed its function.
“Those who corrupt the public mind are just as evil as those who steal from the public purse.”
Speeches of Adlai Ewing Stevenson (1952), p. 99
Source: Either/Or: A Fragment of Life