A Quote by Nelson Mandela

How can I be expected to believe that this same racial discrimination which has been the cause of so much injustice and suffering right through the years, should now operate here to give me a fair and open trial?....consider myself neither morally nor legally obliged to obey laws made by a Parliament in which I am not represented. That the will of the people is the basis of the authority of government, is a principle universally acknowledged as sacred throughout the civilized world.
I consider myself neither legally nor morally bound to obey the laws made by a body in which I have no representation.
The preservation of a free government requires not merely that the metes and bounds which separate each department of power be invariably maintained; but more especially that neither of them be suffered to overleap the great Barrier which defends the rights of the people. The Rulers who are guilty of such an encroachment, exceed the commission from which they derive their authority and are Tyrants. The people who submit to it are governed by laws made neither by themselves nor by an authority derived from them, and are slaves.
We are aware that it is said, that woman is virtually represented in Parliament, her interests being the same as those of man; but the many laws, which have been obliged to be passed to protect them from their nearest male relatives, are a sufficient answer...They are evidently the production of men legislating for their own most obvious interest...without the slightest reference to the injustice they were committing against women.
I have never on the field of battle sent you where I was unwilling to go myself, nor would I now advise you to a course which I felt myself unwilling to pursue. You have been good soldiers. You can be good citizens. Obey the laws, preserve your honor, and the government to which you have surrendered can afford to be and will be magnanimous.
But black people fall for that same argument, and they go around talking about law breakers. We did not make the laws in this country. We are neither morally nor legally confined to those laws. Those laws that keep them up, keep us down.
I wish my countrymen to consider that whatever the human law may be, neither an individual nor a nation can ever commit the leastact of injustice against the obscurest individual without having to pay the penalty for it. A government which deliberately enacts injustice, and persists in it, will at length even become the laughing-stock of the world.
I will gladly give lessons as a favor, particularly when I see that my student has talent, inclination, and anxiety to learn; but to be obliged to go to a house at a certain hour, or to have to wait at home for a pupil, is what I cannot do, no matter how much money it may bring me in. . . I am a composer and was born to be a Kapellmeister. I neither can nor ought to bury the talent for composition with which God in his goodness has so richly endowed me. . .
How cruel the Penal Laws are which exclude me from a fair trial with men whom I look upon as so much my inferiors.
O you who sold yourself for the sake of something that will cause you suffering and pain, and which will also lose its beauty, you sold the most precious item for the cheapest price, as if you neither knew the value of the goods nor the meanness of the prize. Wait until you come on the Day of Mutual Loss and Gain and you will discover the injustice of this contract.
I believe that there is a moral and constitutional equivalence between laws designed to subjugate a race and those that distribute benefits on the basis of race in order to foster some current notion of equality.... In my mind, government-sponsored racial discrimination based on benign prejudice is just as noxious as discrimination inspired by malicious prejudice.
I was walking around legally blind. Now I have 20-20 vision. I can't believe I spent so many years blurry, but I think that coincides with how I was feeling. Now I notice if people are watching me, but I also smile right back if someone waves, which helps.
It depends on the state itself to retain or abolish the principle of representation, because it depends on itself whether it will continue a member of the Union. To deny this right would be inconsistent with the principle on which all our political systems are founded, which is, that the people have in all cases, a right to determine how they will be governed. This right must be considered as an ingredient in the original composition of the general government, which, though not expressed, was mutually understood. . .
Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison, the only house in a slave State in which a free man can abide with honor. They do not know how much truth is stronger than error, nor how much more eloquently and effectively he can combat injustice who has experienced a little in his own person. If the alternative is to keep all just men in prison, or give up war and slavery, the State will not hesitate which to choose.
For me chemistry represented an indefinite cloud of future potentialities which enveloped my life to come in black volutes torn by fiery flashes, like those which had hidden Mount Sinai. Like Moses, from that cloud I expected my law, the principle of order in me, around me, and in the world... I would watch the buds swell in spring, the mica glint in the granite, my own hands, and I would say to myself: "I will understand this, too, I will understand everything.
If Saddam Hussein committed crimes such as political oppression against the Iraqi people, it should be resolved legally in a fair and just manner which doesn't paint a sense of injustice
We have consistently supported a legalization program which is both generous to the alien and fair to the countless thousands of people throughout the world who seek legally to come to America. The legalization provisions in this act will go far to improve the lives of a class of individuals who now must hide in the shadows, without access to many of the benefits of a free and open society. Very soon many of these men and women will be able to step into the sunlight and, ultimately, if they choose, they may become Americans.
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