A Quote by Samuel Johnson
The violence of war admits no distinction; the lance, that is lifted at guilt and power, will sometimes fall on innocence and gentleness.
Related Quotes
Yet God is so one that He admits of distinction, and so admits of distinction that He still remains unity.
Some people draw a comforting distinction between force and violence. I refuse to cloud the issue by such word-play. The power which establishes a state is violence; the power which maintains it is violence; the power which eventually overthrows it is violence. Call an elephant a rabbit only if it gives you comfort to feel that you are about to be trampled to death by a rabbit.
It is more important that innocence be protected than it is that guilt be punished, for guilt and crimes are so frequent in this world that they cannot all be punished. But if innocence itself is brought to the bar and condemned, perhaps to die, then the citizen will say, "whether I do good or whether I do evil is immaterial, for innocence itself is no protection," and if such an idea as that were to take hold in the mind of the citizen that would be the end of security whatsoever.
Experience had taught me that innocence seldom utters outraged shrikes. Guilt does. Innocence is a mighty shield, and the man or woman covered by it, is much more likely to answer calmly: 'My life is blameless. Look into it, if you like, for you will find nothing.' That is the tone of innocence.
Focus on guilt will always breed fear, and focus on innocence will always breed love. Any time we project guilt onto someone else, we are fortifying the experience of guilt within ourselves. Like blood on Lady MacBeth's hands, we cannot remove our own guilty feelings as long as we are judging others.
Vice, like virtue, Grows in small steps, and no true innocence Can ever fall at once to deepest guilt.
Victims suggest innocence. And innocence, by the inexorable logic that governs all relational terms, suggests guilt.
What sparks wars? The will to power, the backbone of human nature. The threat of violence, the fear of violence, or actual violence, is the instrument of this dreadful will. You can see the will to power in bedrooms, kitchens, factories, unions and the borders of states. Listen to this and remember it. The nation state is merely human nature inflated to monstrous proportions. QED, nations are entities whose laws are written by violence. Thus it ever was, so ever shall it be.
From my conversations with Lance Armstrong and experiences with Lance and the team I am aware that Lance used blood transfusions from 2001 through 2005.
The uniqueness of executive clemency lies in the president's power to act without weighing guilt, innocence and legal principle.
Before I met No I thought that violence meant shouting and hitting and war and blood. Now I know that there can also be violence in silence and that it’s sometimes invisible to the naked eye. There’s violence in the time that conceals wounds, the relentless succession of days, the impossibility of turning back the clock. Violence is what escapes us. It’s silent and hidden. Violence is what remains inexplicable, what stays forever opaque.
If you manipulate, coerce, and bully your children, you will have no power at all. If you lead with humility, gentleness, and by example, you will need no power at all.
I am against war, against violence, against violent revolution, for peaceful settlement of differences, for nonviolent but nevertheless radical changes. Change is needed, and violence will not really change anything: at most it will only transfer power from one set of bull-headed authorities to another.
... the next war will be a war in which people not armies will suffer, and our boasted, hard-earned civilization will do us no good. Cannot the women rise to this great opportunity and work now, and not have the double horror, if another war comes, of losing their loved ones, and knowing that they lifted no finger when they might have worked hard?
The person who takes power will never be happy with those things they gain. They have lost their essential balance and innocence. And without innocence, nothing can further, as they say in the I Ching.
Power-Over leads to punishment and violence. Power-With leads to compassion and understanding, and to learning motivated by reverence for life rather than fear, guilt, shame, or anger.
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