Lynsey Addario Quotes

The trouble is that once you see it, you can't unsee it. And once you've seen it, keeping quiet, saying nothing, becomes as political an act as speaking out. There's no innocence. Either way, you're accountable.

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.

No man ought to be condemned for exhorting people to pursue justice in a certain line, though he may foresee that in the pursuit of that justice the opposition given to those who are proceeding in a just course may produce collision, and that collision lead to the commission of crime; but our duty, as I conceive, is to seek for the injustice, and there to impute the crime… It is to that injustice, and not to those who pursue a just course for the attainment of a right end, that the guilt is to be ascribed.

I do not feel remorse. Everybody makes mistakes in war.

When I see something that's sensitive, I go, 'You've got to put that out there.' You need to keep the dialogue going and shine a light on the bad guys. If you sweep it under the carpet, people forget about it. People stop talking about it.

One must always be aware, to notice even though the cost of noticing is to become responsible.

What the Serbs are doing is an international crime. What the world is not doing is also an international crime.

We are responsible not only for what we do but also for what we could have prevented.

When you start off with them being the bad guys and you being the good guys, once you've made that one decision, you don't have to think anymore, if you're in the military. From that point on, anything goes. From that point on, you're capable of anything, even atrocities. Because you've made a decision a long time ago that you're on the right side. You don't keep questioning, questioning, questioning

it is better to mistakenly kill an innocent person then to mistakenly spare an enemy.

God is my judge. We were justified under the circumstances.

I cannot think of any moral definition of anti-war that includes simply ignoring the slaughter of civilians.

While I bore the titel of "Honorable Judge", I felt less than honorable and moroe like a complicit tool of an unjust system.

There are a lot of Iraqi people we can never pay back for what we've done.

One of the greatest things I fear is letting down my people. I wouldn't live with that type of conscience, of having let down my people after they've been brutalized for so long.

It's indifference and ignorance that stops people from doing the right thing.

I'm constantly having to check my conscience about what I'm writing and the responsibility of what I'm saying.

The plea of ignorance will never take away our responsibilities.

I sometimes feel ashamed that I am devoting myself to artistic pursuits while so many of our people are suffering and dying for us. It's true that fretting never did any good.

It is true that all of us are the beneficiaries of crimes committed by our ancestors, and it is true that nothing can be done about that now because the victims are dead and the survivors are innocent. These are good reasons for keeping our mouths shut about the past: but tell me, what are our reasons for silence about atrocities still to come?

We must all work in harmony with each other to stand up for what is right, to speak up for what is fair, and to always voice any corrections so that the ignorant become informed and justice is never ignored. Every time a person allows an act of ignorance to happen, they delay our progress for true change. Every person, molecule and thing matters. We become responsible for the actions of others the instant we become conscious of what they are doing wrong and fail to remind them of what is right.

No nation is permitted to live in ignorance with impunity

It is forgivable to say nothing out of ignorance; it's inexcusable to remain silent once awareness dawns.

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.

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.