
„Absolute freedom mocks at justice. Absolute justice denies freedom. To be fruitful, the two ideas must find their limits in each other.“
— Albert Camus French author and journalist 1913 - 1960
"Historical Murder", as translated by Anthony Bower
— Albert Camus French author and journalist 1913 - 1960
"Historical Murder", as translated by Anthony Bower
— Lionel Trilling American academic 1905 - 1975
Introduction
— Hans Kelsen Austrian lawyer 1881 - 1973
"What Is Justice?" (1952), published in What is Justice? (1957)
— Octave Mirbeau French journalist, art critic, travel writer, pamphleteer, novelist, and playwright 1848 - 1917
Garden of Tortures
— Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues French writer, a moralist 1715 - 1747
p. 176.
— George Holmes Howison American philosopher 1834 - 1916
p.430
— Dan Simmons American novelist 1948
Chapter 45 (p. 490)
— Albert Einstein German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity 1879 - 1955
p. 108
— Julia Ward Howe American abolitionist, social activist, and poet 1819 - 1910
Context: I think nothing is religion which puts one individual absolutely above others, and surely nothing is religion which puts one sex above another. Religion is primarily our relation to the Supreme, to God himself. It is for him to judge; it is for him to say where we belong, who is highest and who is not; of that we know nothing. And any religion which will sacrifice a certain set of human beings for the enjoyment or aggrandizement or advantage of another is no religion. It is a thing which may be allowed, but it is against true religion. Any religion which sacrifices women to the brutality of men is no religion.
— George Holmes Howison American philosopher 1834 - 1916
p.224-5
— Martin Luther King, Jr. American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement 1929 - 1968
Context: "The apparent apathy of the Negro ministers presented a special problem. A faithful few had always shown a deep concern for social problems, but too many had remained aloof from the area of social responsibility. Much of this indifference, it is true, stemmed from a sincere feeling that ministers were not supposed to get mixed up in such earthly, temporal matters as social and economic improvement; they were to "preach the gospel" and keep men's minds centered on "the heavenly." But however sincere, this view of religion, I felt, was too confined.
Certainly, otherworldly concerns have a deep and significant place in all religions worthy of the name. Any religion that is completely earthbound sells its birthright for a mess of naturalistic pottage. Religion at its best, deals not only with man's preliminary concerns but with his inescapable ultimate concern. When religion overlooks this basic fact it is reduced to a mere ethical system in which eternity is absorbed into time and God is relegated to a sort of meaningless figment of the human imagination. But a religion true to its nature must also be concerned about man's social conditions. Religion deals with both earth and heaven, both time and eternity. Religion operates not only on the vertical plane but also on the horizontal. It seeks not only to integrate men with God but to integrate men with men and each man with himself.
This means, at bottom, that the Christian Gospel is a two-way road. On the one hand, it seeks to change the souls of men, and thereby unite them with God; on the other hand, it seek to change the environmental conditions of men so that soul will have a chance after it is changed.
Any religion that professes to be concerned with the souls of men and is not concerned with the slums that damn them, the economic conditions that strangle them, and the social conditions that cripple them is a dry-as-dust religion. Such a religion is the kind the Marxists like to see - an opiate of the people.
Stride Toward Freedom (1958), pp. 28-29<!-- New York: Ballantine Books, -->
— Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire