Anna Sewell Quotes

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

My doctrine is this, that if we see cruelty or wrong that we have the power to stop, and do nothing, we make ourselves sharers in the guilt.

It is not a man's duty, as a matter of course, to devote himself to the eradication of any, even the most enormous wrong; he may still properly have other concerns to engage him; but it is his duty, at least, to wash his hands of it, and, if he gives it no thought longer, not to give it practically his support. If I devote myself to other pursuits and contemplations, I must first see, at least, that I do not pursue them sitting upon another man's shoulders.

Passivity is the same as defending injustice.

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.

Citizens with a conscience are not going to ignore wrong-doing simply because they'll be destroyed for it: the conscience forbids it.

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.

If there is any God, there is only one way to please him, and that is by a conscientious discharge of your obligations to your fellow men.

If we don't bear witness as citizens, as people, as individuals, the right that we have had to life is sacrificed. There is a silence, instead of a speaking presence.

Acceptance does not mean that you placidly acquiesce to the myriad injustices that are all around you. In fact, that you are incensed about these injustices is the very reason you need to try your level best to 'right' these 'wrongs.'

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

It is not a man's duty, as a matter of course, to devote himself to the eradication of any, even the most enormous wrong; he may still properly have other concerns to engage him; but it is his duty, at least, to wash his hands of it, and, if he gives it no thought longer, not to give it practically his support.

Silence is complicity. I believe that.

If we won't fight injustice wherever we see it, then we are not safe from suffering injustice ourselves.

There are people who can look out for other human beings; there are people who can speak up when something is not right and say, 'This is wrong, and something should be done.'

Wrong does not cease to be wrong because the majority share in it.

A time comes when silence is betrayal.

How can I act in an impersonal manner? When a man dies in the street for want of food, how can I ignore him? When I find a starving or naked man in the street, I cannot walk past him. I think no human being can do that.

He [man] knows that when he is not what he ought to be; when he does what he ought not to do; or omits what he ought to do, he is chargeable with sin

This is our fault. My fault as much as the next man's, because even if I was against the war, I didn't do enough to stop it.

Perhaps the worst sin in life is knowing right and not doing it.

In the face of suffering, one has no right to turn away, not to see.

The truth is that people who pull triggers are ultimately responsible, whether they're following orders or not. An army of people making individual moral choices may be inefficient, but an army of people ignoring their morality is horrifying.

All of us are subject to being passive to the social ills around us. It's a struggle not to become, by staying silent, an accomplice.

It's such a simple thing, really. It's an awareness that the other people in the world are other people, and that you are one of them. That every time you have a chance to help somebody out, to do what's right instead of what you think you're supposed to do, you should do it.