50 Books to Read Before You Die

words to inspire before you expire

Tag: Justice

February 22, 2019 /

“The chaplain had mastered, in a moment of divine intuition, the handy technique of protective rationalization, and he was exhilarated by his discovery. It was miraculous. It was almost no trick at all, he saw, to turn vice into virtue and slander into truth, impotence into abstinence, arrogance into humility, plunder into philanthropy, thievery into honor, blasphemy into wisdom, brutality into patriotism, and sadism into justice. Anybody could do it; it required no brains at all. It merely required no character.”

—from Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

February 11, 2019 /

“History did not demand Yossarian’s premature demise, justice could be satisfied without it, progress did not hinge upon it, victory did not depend on it. That men would die was a matter of necessity; which men would die, though, was a matter of circumstance, and Yossarian was willing to be the victim of anything but circumstance. But that was war.”

—from Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

September 21, 2017 /

A conversation about India between Ronny and his mother:

“‘We’re not out here for the purpose of behaving pleasantly!’

‘What do you mean?’

‘What I say. We’re out here to do justice and keep the peace. Them’s my sentiments. India isn’t a drawing room.’

‘Your sentiments are those of a god,’ she said quietly, but it was his manner rather than his sentiments that annoyed her.

Trying to recover his temper, he said, ‘India likes gods.’

‘And Englishmen like posing as gods.’

—from A Passage to India E. M. Forster

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