"Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution" (31 March 1968)
1960s
Variant: There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must take it because conscience tells him it is right.
Source: A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches
Context: On some positions, Cowardice asks the question, "Is it safe?" Expediency asks the question, "Is it politic?" And Vanity comes along and asks the question, "Is it popular?" But Conscience asks the question "Is it right?" And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must do it because Conscience tells him it is right.
Context: On some positions, Cowardice asks the question, "Is it safe?" Expediency asks the question, "Is it politic?" And Vanity comes along and asks the question, "Is it popular?" But Conscience asks the question "Is it right?" And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must do it because Conscience tells him it is right. I believe today that there is a need for all people of good will to come together with a massive act of conscience and say in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "We ain't goin' study war no more." This is the challenge facing modern man.
“And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic nor popular - but one must take it because it is right.”
Source: Wide Awake
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David Levithan 447
American author and editor 1972Related quotes
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“It is neither right nor safe to go against my conscience.”
“One luminary clock against the sky
Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.”
" Acquainted with the Night http://www.ketzle.com/frost/acquainted.htm" (1928)
General sources
Context: One luminary clock against the sky
Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.
I have been one acquainted with the night.
晉譯華嚴經疏序 Hwaeomgyeong so seo (Preface to the Commentary on the Jin Translation of the Flower Ornament Sutra)
Translated by A. Charles Muller.
2010s, Interview with Joshua Stanton (August 2017)
1963, Remarks Intended for Delivery to the Texas Democratic State Committee in the Municipal Auditorium in Austin
“You are neither right nor wrong because people agree with you.”
As quoted by Warren Buffett, in an interview in Forbes magazine (1 November 1974)
Remark at the International PEN Club conference, Sept 11-13 1941, reproduced in John Dos Passos: The Major Nonfictional Prose, ed. Donald Pizer