Quote collection
64 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"You ultimately judge the civility of a society not by how it treats the rich, the powerful, the protected and the highly esteemed, but by how it treats the poor, the disfavored and the disadvantaged."
"We have a system of justice in [the US] that treats you much better if you're rich and guilty than if you're poor and innocent. Wealth, not culpability, shapes outcomes."
"You don’t change the world with the ideas in your mind, but with the conviction in your heart."
"We are all implicated when we allow other people to be mistreated. An absence of compassion can corrupt the decency of a community, a state, a nation. Fear and anger can make us vindictive and abusive, unjust and unfair, until we all suffer from the absence of mercy and we condemn ourselves as much as we victimize others. The closer we get to mass incarceration and extreme levels of punishment, the more I believe it's necessary to recognize that we all need mercy, we all need justice, and-perhaps-we all need some measure of unmerited grace."
"There is a strength, a power even, in understanding brokenness, because embracing our brokenness creates a need and desire for mercy, and perhaps a corresponding need to show mercy. When you experience mercy, you learn things that are hard to learn otherwise. You see things you can't otherwise see; you hear things you can't otherwise hear. You begin to recognize the humanity that resides in each of us."
"Somebody has to stand when other people are sitting. Somebody has to speak when other people are quiet."
"I've come to understand and to believe that each of us is more than the worst thing we've ever done. I believe that for every person on the planet. I think if somebody tells a lie, they're not just a liar. I think if somebody takes something that doesn't belong to them, they're not just a thief. I think even if you kill someone, you're not just a killer. And because of that, there's this basic human dignity that must be respected by law."
"The opposite of poverty is not wealth. I don't believe that. I actually think, in too many places, the opposite of poverty is justice."
"The true measure of our character is how we treat the poor, the disfavored, the accused, the incarcerated, and the condemned."
"The greatest evil of American slavery was not involuntary servitude but rather the narrative of racial differences we created to legitimate slavery. Because we never dealt with that evil, I don't think slavery ended in 1865, it just evolved."
"Each of us is more than the worst thing we've ever done."
"In many ways, we've been taught to think that the real question is, do people deserve to die for the crimes they've committed? And that's a very sensible question. But there's another way of thinking about where we are in our identity. The other way of thinking about it is not, do people deserve to die for the crimes they commit, but do we deserve to kill?"
"We live in a country that talks about being the home of the brave and the land of the free, and we have the highest incarceration rate in the world."
"I don't think there's been a time in American history with more innocent people in prison."
"Always do the right thing even when the right thing is the hard thing"
"The Bureau of Justice reports that one in three black male babies born this century will go to jail or prison - that is an absolutely astonishing statistic. And it ought to be terrorizing to not just to people of color, but to all of us."
"We are all broken by something. We have all hurt someone and have been hurt. We all share the condition of brokenness even if our brokenness is not equivalent."
"We've all been acculturated into accepting the inevitability of wrongful convictions, unfair sentences, racial bias, and racial disparities and discrimination against the poor."
"Whenever society begins to create policies and laws rooted in fear and anger, there will be abuse and injustice."
"We don't need police officers who see themselves as warriors. We need police officers who see themselves as guardians and parts of the community. You can't police a community that you're not a part of."