John Nelson Darby Quotes

A man who knows a thing, who is aware of a given danger, and sees the possibility of a remedy with his own eyes, has the duty and obligation, by God, not to work 'silently,' but to stand up before the whole public against the evil and for its cure.

If you see something that is not right, not fair, not just, you have a moral obligation to do something about it.

f the injustice is part of the necessary friction of the machine of government, let it go, let it go; perchance it will wear smooth - certainly the machine will wear out... but if it is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then I say, break the law. Let your life be a counter-friction to stop the machine. What I have to do is to see, at any rate, that I do not lend myself to the wrong which I condemn.

Those of us who are today prepared to hazard our lives for the cause would regret having raised a finger, if we were able to organize only a new social system and not a more righteous one.

What's right and good doesn't come naturally. You have to stand up and fight for it - as if the cause depends on you, because it does.

If you know something is morally reprehensible, then it is your moral obligation to stop it as soon as possible.

She had looked her duty courageously in the face and found it a friend - as duty ever is when we meet it frankly.

Americans of good-will, the nice decent church people, the well-meaning liberals, the good hearted souls who themselves wouldn't lynch anyone, must begin to realize that they have to be more than passively good-hearted, more than church goingly Christian, and much more than word-of-mouth in the liberalism.

It's up to us, the people, to break immoral laws, and resist.

Evil prevails when good people do nothing.

There comes a time when people with values simply have to stand up. Think about Nazi, Germany. Most of those people did not believe in what Hitler was doing.

It is purposeless to tell Negroes they should not be enraged when they should be. Indeed, they will be mentally healthier if they do not suppress rage, but vent it constructively and use its energy peacefully but forcefully to cripple the operations of an oppressive society. Civil disobedience can utilize the militance wasted in riots to seize clothes or groceries many do not even want.

I admire the good samaritan, but I don't want to be one.I don't want to spend my life picking up people by the side of the road after they have been beaten up and robbed.I want to change the Jericho road, so that everybody has an opportunity for a job, education, security, health.

Like a boil that must be opened with all its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must be exposed to the light of human conscience before it can be cured.

The idea of duty--that recognition of something to be lived for beyond the mere satisfaction of self--is to the moral life what the addition of a great central ganglion is to animal life.

Those who do not confront evil resent those who do.

I'm a man that has a vision as to how this world can be, and I've gathered myself through all the ordeals that I had to make me a well-rounded person and still fight for justice.

I believe there are huge numbers of people in this country who would be willing to have radical changes in our economic and social system in order to make it a more egalitarian society and do away with homelessness and hunger and clean up the environment. But these people have no voice. They have no way of expressing themselves. Elections give them no way of expressing themselves.

You can't be neutral on a moving train.

There are a lot things that are going on that are unjust. People aren't being held accountable for. And that's something that needs to change.

The world - and America - has been defined by people who haven't necessarily abided by the laws and the rules. Civil disobedience is part of our nation's history and has redirected our country in many instances, from the feminist movement to the Civil Rights movement and beyond.

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.

I learned from my illiterate but wise mother that all rights to be deserved and preserved came from duty well done. Thus the very right to live accrues to us only when we do the duty of citizenship of the world. From this one fundamental statement, perhaps it is easy enough to define the duties of Man and Woman and correlate every right to some corresponding duty to be first performed. Every other right can be shown to be a usurpation hardly worth fighting for.