Ta-Nehisi Coates Quotes

Convictions are variable; to be always consistent is to be sometimes dishonest.

I am peaceful but I am not a pacifist in the philosophical sense.

There are some things to die for but none to kill for.

Did not Jesus say, resist not evil — with evil? Is not war the worst form of that evil.

The devil is compromise.

Right is right, even if everyone is against it, and wrong is wrong, even if everyone is for it.

As a person, I'm anti-violence.

I think violence can never be justified.

When you do something in a nonviolent way, people will die and there will be casualties. But you're taking a different point of view that has a power.

If I do not respond to some situation, my conscience kills me. I believe in permissible violence, not necessarily non-violence.

Truth made you a traitor as it often does in a time of scoundrels.

For me, integrity is the consistency of words and actions. Part of the way that you do that is to ask people questions on some of the most difficult issues that you confront. 'Take me through where you felt you had to compromise your values.'

Ethics to me is very important.

Everyone's a pacifist between wars. It's like being a vegetarian between meals.

It is inaccurate to say that I hate everything. I am strongly in favor of common sense, common honesty, and common decency. This makes me forever ineligible for public office.

Morals, not Art or Literature.

Why should we not teach our children those principles, upon which we ourselves have thought and acted? Ought we to instill into their tender minds a theory, especially if unfounded, which is contradictory to our own practice, built on the most solid foundation? Why should we reduce them to the cruel dilemma of condemning, either those principles which they have been taught to believe, or those persons whom they have been taught to revere?

I am sorry to say I do doubt the honesty of many men that are called good at home, that have given themselves up to serve a party.

The means you use must be as pure as the ends you seek.

If you disapprove of violence, then you can't think there is any age when violence is appropriate.

The pursuit of justice is all I have ever known.

For me, politics is about passion. It doesn't matter what you know; it's your actions that count. I meet people who say they're socialists, and that's not what they carry out in their everyday life.

In the area of social righteousness we cannot be right on the inside and not do it. We cannot! Of course we have people who pretend that they can, but it simply isn't true.

We're not really pacifists, we're nonviolent soldiers.

Jesus was a pacifist.