> Every time we witness an injustice and do not act, we train our character to be passive in its presence and thereby eventually lose all ability to defend ourselves and those we love.
I am not exactly a Julian Assange fan... in the least... but there is something to this quote.
The hard part about any quote, of course, is that the context in which the statement is originally made could be very different than the context here and the change of context can change the meaning entirely. And this can, over time, ascribe new positions to the person being quoted that they really don't hold. Not saying that is necessarily the case here, I don't know... just something to keep in mind.
> the context in which the statement is originally made could be very different than the context her
The context I replied to was gaining from the injustice (and suffering) inflicted on others, and being smug about it. What could change about the "context" - what one considers injustice? That's factored in already, and gloating is, as I see it, being passive and worse.
It doesn't matter who said it anyway, I bet you I could find you a lot of wise people who said it in different and expanded forms. He put it succinctly.
It takes guts to stand up for yourself when push comes to shove. When you water down the wine of what even you yourself consider just, subjective and restricted as we all may be, it will fail you.
The hard part about any quote, of course, is that the context in which the statement is originally made could be very different than the context here and the change of context can change the meaning entirely. And this can, over time, ascribe new positions to the person being quoted that they really don't hold. Not saying that is necessarily the case here, I don't know... just something to keep in mind.
(stepping down from soapbox)