Whitney M. Young Quotes

Our society is full of hypocrites and irrational people.

Nowadays those are rewarded who make right appear wrong.

America had the message of freedom and democracy, but we haven't actually shown that to be what we do in the world. So I think that's a terrifying thing.

The idea of democracy has been stripped of it moral imperatives and come to denote hollowness and hypocrisy.

Because hypocrisy stinks in the nostrils one is likely to rate it as a more powerful agent for destruction than it is.

Who takes the blame: the leader who talks of poverty but lives in luxury, or the poor who choose a leader of that type?

Samuel J. Tilden says we are a nation of thieves and rascals. If that is so he ought to be President.

America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future

We preach Democracy in vain while Tory and Conservative can point to the opposite side of the Atlantic and say: "There are Nineteen millions of the human race free absolutely, every man heir to the throne, governing themselves—the government of all, by all, for all; but instead of being a consistent republic it is one widespread confederacy of free men for the enslavement of a nation of another complexion.

America has value-based leadership. America is valued - America is followed by other nations, including my own nation, because it's based on the values that America has to offer to the rest of the world - freedom, freedom of choice, democracy, open market.

We talk eloquently about our commitment to the principles of Christianity, and yet our lives are saturated with the practices of paganism. We proclaim our devotion to democracy, but we sadly practice the very opposite of the democratic creed.... This strange dichotomy, this agonizing gulf between the ought and the is, represents the tragic theme of man's earthly pilgrimage.

The only difference between [America] and South Africa, South Africa preaches separation and practices separation, America preaches integration and practices segregation. This is the only difference, they don't practice what they preach, whereas South Africa practices and preaches the same thing.

They don't stand for anything different in South Africa than America stands for. The only difference is over there they preach as well as practice apartheid. America preaches freedom and practices slavery.

The same president who has insisted that core moralism drives him has brought America to its lowest moral standing in history.

They attack the victim, and then the criminal who attacked the victim accuses the victim of attacking him. This is American justice. This is American democracy and those of you who are familiar with it know that in America democracy is hypocrisy. Now, if I’m wrong, put me in jail; but if you can’t prove that democracy is not hypocrisy, then don’t put your hands on me.

There are too many who reverse both the principles and the practice of the Apostles; they become all things to all men, not to serve others, but themselves; and they try all things only to hold fast that which is bad.

Wherever the standard of freedom and independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will be America's heart, her benedictions and her prayers.

But I'm here to say that when we do speak out, we're going to do so because the United States of America does believe, and will always stand for, a certain set of universal values.

In America, we've got to get back to these base principles of what democracy is.

We fell morally ill because we became used to saying something different from what we thought.

It is curious that we pay statesmen for what they say, not for what they do; and judge of them from what they do, not from what they say. Hence they have one code of maxims for profession and another for practice, and make up their consciences as the Neapolitans do their beds, with one set of furniture for show and another for use.

Hypocrisy is a fashionable vice, and all fashionable vices pass for virtue.

It's my opinion that every one I know has morals, though I wouldn't like to ask. I know I have. But I'd rather teach them than practice them any day. "Give them to others"-that's my motto.

America is a country of laws.

I thank God and America for the right to live and raise my family under the flag of tolerance, democracy and freedom.