Jennifer Donnelly Quotes

'Indifference to evil is equal to evil' because it strengthens people.

For evil to take place, the acts of a few people are not sufficient; the great majority also has to remain indifferent.

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

I make little distinction between those who commit evil and those who stand by and do nothing.

For evil to flourish, it only requires good men to do nothing.

I have no love for those who consider themselves 'good people' but stand idly by as the world crumbles around them. It's not enough to personally not do damage. If you're present as someone else destroys what's around you and you do nothing, you helped them.

Passivity is a tacit endorsement of evil we are too afraid to oppose actively.

The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything.

Those who choose not to empathize enable real monsters, for without ever committing an act of outright evil ourselves we collude with it through our apathy.

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.

But that would leave Paxton to fend for herself, and the last thing any woman wanted in this kind of situation was to look around and see all the people who could help her doing nothing.

Silence in the face of atrocity is not neutrality; silence in the face of atrocity is acquiescence.

Let not any one pacify his conscience by the delusion that he can do no harm if he takes no part, and forms no opinion. Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.

Those who really deserve praise are the people who, while human enough to enjoy power, nevertheless pay more attention to justice than they are compelled to do by their situation.

Because he KNEW he was doing wrong. He felt the PAIN of his actions'-- 'But he did not amen them,' shows the Sky. 'The rest are worth as much as their pack animals,' I show, 'but worst is the one who knows better and does NOTHING.

You can't run a society or cope with its problems if people are not held accountable for what they do.

There are no innocent bystanders.

To see evil and not call it evil is evil.

Because we can't comprehend it, and that's what allows us to do it again. And it is the normal, it's the average person that can do this. Again, in an imaginary other universe, maybe we'd have done it. That's the terrible truth that lies at the heart of each of us; that imponderable, 'were I not Jewish, in Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Germany, would I have gone down on the other side?'

I belive power can be used for good, I don't think every form of power is absolute evil. I wish I would have stepped in, and I really regret it. And that's why I really encourage young people who are organizing to speak up.

Srebrenica's not simply another reminder of man's inhumanity to man, but how intelligent people can always come up with intelligent reasons to do nothing.

We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the vitriolic words and actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence of the good people.

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

People who look the other way when they see these war criminals are smaller criminals themselves.

In a word, I was too cowardly to do what I knew to be right, as I had been too cowardly to avoid doing what I knew to be wrong.