Theodore Roosevelt on justice

Speak softly and carry a big stick.

To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.

It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

Martin Luther King Jr.1929–1968The Rising Tide of Racial Consciousnes (1960)

A man must be willing to die for justice. Death is an inescapable reality and men die daily, but good deeds live forever.

Jesse Jackson1941–2026

• Life & Death
• Morality

True patriotism hates injustice in its own land more than anywhere else.

Clarence Darrow1857–1938

• Patriotism