Ralph Chaplin Quotes

Undoubtedly, to salve your conscience, you have now and then helped some miserable human being, but millions of human beings were murdered and nary a protest was heard.

Apathy in general; people who are not standing up for what they believe in because somebody's got a louder mouth than them; it doesn't make any sense.

The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people.

To avoid criticism, do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing.

I never lie because I don't fear anyone. You only lie when you're afraid.

Throughout history, it has been the inaction of those who could have acted, the indifference of those who should have known better, the silence of the voice of justice when it mattered most, that has made it possible for evil to triumph.

How shall Integrity face Oppression?

I was not afraid of the words of the violent, but of the silence of the honest.

How shall Integrity face Oppression? What shall Honesty do in the face of Deception, Decency in the face of Insult, Self-Defense before Blows? How shall Desert and Accomplishment meet Despising, Detraction, and Lies? What shall Virtue do to meet Brute Force? There are so many answers and so contradictory; and such differences for those on the one hand who meet questions similar to this once a year or once a decade, and those who face them hourly and daily.

My generation's apathy. I'm disgusted with it. I'm disgusted with my own apathy too, for being spineless and not always standing up against racism, sexism and all those other -isms the counterculture has been whining about for years.

Unethical conduct is actually the conduct of destruction and fear; lies are told because one is afraid of the consequences should one tell the truth; thus, the liar is inevitably a coward, the coward is inevitably a liar.

The worst thing of all is standing by when folks are doing something wrong.

To say that a man lieth, is as much to say, as that he is brave towards God, and a coward towards men.

Falsehood is cowardice, the truth courage.

All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.

The man dies in all who keep silent in the face of tyranny.

Evil prospers when good men do nothing.

You give me electric chair. I no afraid of that chair! You're one of capitalists. You is crook man too. Put me in electric chair. I no care!

History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.

All tyranny, bigotry, aggression, and cruelty are wrong, and whenever we see it, we must never be silent.

I write for those women who do not speak, for those who do not have a voice because they were so terrified, because we are taught to respect fear more than ourselves. We've been taught that silence would save us, but it won't.

Every Westerner is jubilating that the Berlin Wall has fallen. Something worst than the Berlin Wall is in Palestine; and nobody is talking about it.

Men are accomplices to that which leaves them indifferent.

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.

To sin by silence, when we should protest, Makes cowards out of men.