Stonewall Jackson Quotes

Few things are more damaging to our democracy than a military officer who doesn't have the moral courage to stand up for what's right or the moral fiber to step aside when circumstances dictate.

Doing what is right in the face of adversity is not always easy or popular. Critics may assail you, but the critics don't always realize what they don't know or don't understand, because they don't have access to all the information.

Personal prudence, even when dictated by quite other than selfish considerations, surely is no special virtue in a military man; while an excessive love of glory, impassioning a less burning impulse, the honest sense of duty, is the first.

But courage which goes against military expediency is stupidity, or, if it is insisted upon by a commander, irresponsibility.

A cowardly act! What do I care about that? You may be sure that I should never fear to commit one if it were to my advantage.

[N]either in war nor yet at law ought any man to use every way of escaping death. For often in battle there is no doubt that if a man will throw away his arms, and fall on his knees before his pursuers, he may escape death; and in other dangers there are other ways of escaping death, if a man is willing to say and do anything. The difficulty, my friends, is not in avoiding death, but in avoiding unrighteousness; for that runs faster than death.

Dr. Martin Luther King was never a man to say 'I've got this' as the leader of the movement. He wasn't always sure that his decisions were correct, because he knew every decision he made was putting lives at risk, including his and his family's lives.

I know what we do is right but right doesn't always mean easy.

The fear of doing right is the grand treason in times of danger.

He recalls what that first German soldier said to his major: No God-not yours or mine-approves of what you're doing.

On my way out I was even going to shake his hand, but I remembered just in time that I'd killed a man.

I went hunting, I shot a deer, and it mortified me. I just couldn't do it again.

He knew. I could see it in his face. Look, if someone gets infected you've got between ten and twenty seconds to kill them. It might be your brother or your sister or your oldest friend. It makes no difference. And just so you know where you stand - if it happens to you, I'll do it in a heartbeat.

A military without political training is a potential criminal.

... you can't put out a light just because it may light the wrong person.

We must do right and risk the consequences.

The antagonism between life and conscience may be removed in two ways: by a change of life or by a change of conscience.

The key to acting with integrity is to simply stop playing the game.

What I may see or hear in the course of the treatment or even outside of the treatment in regard to the life of men, which on no account one must spread abroad, I will keep to myself holding such things shameful to be spoken about.

The really difficult moral issues arise, not from a confrontation of good and evil, but from a collision between two goods

We must do what we conceive to be the right thing, and not bother our heads or burden our souls with whether we are going to be successful. Because if we don't do the right thing, we'll be doing the wrong thing, and we will just be part of the disease, and not a part of the cure.

You are wrong, sir, if you think that a man who is any good at all should take into account the risk of life or death; he should look to this only in his actions, whether what he does is right or wrong, whether he is acting like a good or a bad man.

The characteristic feature of all ethics is to consider human life as a game that can be won or lost and to teach man the means of winning.

Integrity is never painless.

Integrity, honesty, and honor may not give immediate rewards or gratification, and they can be life-threatening (for example, being a whistle-blower or turning state's evidence). The absence of integrity, honesty, and honor do not always bring punishment or scorn, and can be life-aggrandizing (connivers and cheats often gain power and wealth). Therefore, morality must be its own reward.