Andy Dunn Quotes

I have lectured at the U.N. and travelled widely, giving lectures on human rights and gender inequalities in universities. But this is a life I do not wish to live. I don't want to be a showcase, I want to be in a battlefield where I can stand beside the oppressed and the poor.

Now I say that with cruelty and oppression it is everybody's business to interfere when they see it.

There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.

We're supposed to be an example of freedom, and if we are doing things that are injustice to people, then what is our statement?

Where there are breaches of human rights, you need to speak out about it, no matter where it is.

You are either on the side of the oppressed or on the side of the oppressor. You can't be neutral.

They tell me: If you see a slave sleeping, do not wake him lest he be dreaming of freedom. I tell them: If you see a slave sleeping, wake him and explain to him freedom.

My nature is that when I see abuses of power, I want to expose those abuses.

I am aware that in presenting myself as the advocate of the Indians and their rights, I shall stand very much alone.

People have a right to have their lives witnessed; if we coexist with the systems that abuse people, then we have a duty to understand.

If a policy is wrongheaded, feckless and corrupt, I take it personally and consider it a moral obligation to sound off and not shut up until it's fixed.

Where I come from, if you see your family and friends' civil rights being taken away, you speak up and do everything you can to keep that from happening!

I think that all people who feel that there is injustice in the world anywhere should learn as much of it as they can bear. That is our duty.

If you care about injustice, and if you care about freedom, and you care about human rights, then you care about them everywhere.

From my father's point of view, without a thought for self, a true patriot stands up against the stones of condemnation and speaks for those who are given no real voice in the halls of justice or the halls of government.

The issue of human rights is one of the most fundamental human issues and also one of the most sensitive and controversial.

This is always a pain because it's injustice too and so my response to it, I tell you what I am more surprised or horrified at Jews who forget to be humanists than I am at anybody else.

There are two things that I put my focus on. One is the fight against AIDS and finding a cure. The other is human rights.

I'm not an activist; I don't look for controversy. I'm not a political person, but I'm a person with compassion. I care passionately about equal rights. I care about human rights. I care about animal rights.

I think it is incumbent on all human beings to oppose injustice in every form.

No one who passively endures an injustice against himself has the material in him to struggle for the rights of others. The one who patiently forbears becomes an accessory to the injustice done to others. He who resists the injustice which he himself meets can open up the way to a higher right for others.

My father, John Steinbeck, was a man who held human history in great reverence, and in particular the biographies of those people who had risked their lives, their fortunes, and their worldly honor to defend the rights and prerogatives of those who were powerless to defend themselves.

At the Carter Center we work with victims of oppression, and we give support to human rights heroes.

We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.

In Psalm 72, Solomon prays for power and fame but he says the purpose of influence is to speak up for others and one is the immigrant. He doesn't delineate between legal and illegal.