Naftali Bennett Quotes

I knew I was getting into one of the most illegal things in the world. It was the right thing to do.

What do you do when you get a draft notice and you think a war is wrong? And I struggled with that for months prior to my being inducted into the army, and I'm still struggling with it, 40 years later.

Never do anything against conscience even if the state demands it.

No one wanted me to be a conscientious objector. My parents certainly didn't want it. My teacher and mentor, Joe Brearley, didn't want it. My friends didn't want it. I was alone.

My poet's heart gives me strength to face political problems, particularly those which have a bearing on my conscience.

Every generation will be challenged morally once in their life about its government, and they will have to say where they stand.

Would we be the heroes or the cowards of the piece? Would we follow orders or stick to our principles, if those two things ever conflicted? Would we be the brave ones who still found the capacity for love - and for laughter - even while we were terrified?

Sometimes you have to do what’s wrong in order to do what’s right.

But people didn't forgive you for doing what felt right-that was the last thing they forgave you for.

The important thing is moral choice. Evil has to exist along with good, in order that moral choice may operate. Life is sustained by the grinding opposition of moral entities.

There are worse things than a lie... I have found... that it may be well to choose one sin in order that another may be shunned.

A just war is in the long run far better for a man's soul than the most prosperous peace.

I did it for political, moral reasons, thinking that I was making this great sacrifice, but it was absolutely necessary; I was not going to contribute to the violence in the world anymore.

If in order to kill the enemy you have to kill an innocent, don't take the shot. Don't create more enemies than you take out by some immoral act.

Wondering if God loves us when we're cheating? Oh, but why he lets us feel things, if it's wrong.

I don't understand why it's a sin if you love something and want to keep it from having to suffer.

I think that Lee should have been hanged. It was all the worse that he was a good man and a fine character and acted conscientiously... It's always the good men who do the most harm in the world.

I may cut my coat to follow fashion, sir, but not my conscience.

Imagine that you are creating a fabric of human destiny with the object of making men happy in the end, giving them peace and rest at last. Imagine that you are doing this but that it is essential and inevitable to torture to death only one tiny creature...in order to found that edifice on its unavenged tears. Would you consent to be the architect on those conditions? Tell me. Tell the truth.

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

You assist an administration most effectively by obeying its orders and decrees. An evil administration never deserves such allegiance. Allegiance to it means partaking of the evil. A good man will therefore resist an evil system or administration with his whole soul.

To oblige a friend by inflicting an injury on his enemy is often more easy than to confer a benefit on the friend himself.

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.

Stands must be taken. If I am to respect myself I have to search myself for what I believe is right and take a stand on what I find. Otherwise, I have not gathered together what I have been given; I have not embraced what I have learned; I lack my own conviction.

There were lies we told to save ourselves, and then there were lies we told to rescue others. What counted more, the mistruth, or the greater good?