Sunday, April 15, 2012 – Claiming Justification
An explanation of cause is not a justification by reason. ~ C. S. Lewis
Every philosophical problem, when it is subjected to the necessary analysis and justification, is found either to be not really philosophical at all, or else to be, in the sense in which we are using the word, logical. ~ Bertrand Russell
God’s designs may be frequent justification for our actions, but it is we, the self-made men, who take the credit. ~ Arthur Erickson
Eroticism has its own moral justification because it says that pleasure is enough for me; it is a statement of the individual’s sovereignty. ~ Mario Vargas Llosa
Moral justification is a powerful disengagement mechanism. Destructive conduct is made personally and socially acceptable by portraying it in the service of moral ends. This is why most appeals against violent means usually fall on deaf ears. ~ Albert Bandura
My justification is that most people my age spend a lot of time thinking about what they’re going to do for the next five or ten years. The time they spend thinking about their life, I just spend drinking. ~ Amy Winehouse
The man of science has learned to believe in justification, not by faith, but by verification. ~ Thomas Huxley
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. ~ John Kenneth Galbraith
Woman: the peg on which the wit hangs his jest, the preacher his text, the cynic his grouch and the sinner his justification. ~ Helen Rowland
A creator needs only one enthusiast to justify him. ~ Man Ray
Work isn’t to make money; you work to justify life. ~ Marc Chagall
A pun does not commonly justify a blow in return. But if a blow were given for such cause, and death ensued, the jury would be judges both of the facts and of the pun, and might, if the latter were of an aggravated character, return a verdict of justifiable homicide. ~ Oliver Wendell Holmes
And malt does more than Milton can to justify God’s ways to man. ~ A. E. Housman
Everything must justify its existence before the judgment seat of Reason, or give up existence. ~ Friedrich Engels
Everywhere, authority and tradition have to justify themselves in the face of questions. ~ Gustav Heinemann
Fear of serious injury alone cannot justify oppression of free speech and assembly. Men feared witches and burnt women. It is the function of speech to free men from the bondage of irrational fears. ~ Louis D. Brandeis
If the end does not justify the means – what can? ~ Edward Abbey
The end may justify the means as long as there is something that justifies the end. ~ Leon Trotsky
It is not to be forgotten that what we call rational grounds for our beliefs are often extremely irrational attempts to justify our instincts. ~ Thomas Huxley
It’s more fun to arrive a conclusion than to justify it. ~ Malcolm Forbes
Nothing requires a greater effort of thought than arguments to justify the rule of non-thought. ~ Milan Kundera
Those who lack the courage will always find a philosophy to justify it. ~ Albert Camus
I never made a mistake in my life; at least, never one that I couldn’t explain away afterwards. ~ Rudyard Kipling,
I’m afraid that in the United States of America today the prevailing doctrine of justification is not justification by faith alone. It is not even justification by good works or by a combination of faith and works. The prevailing notion of justification in our culture today is justification by death. All one has to do to be received into the everlasting arms of God is to die. ~ R. C. Sproul
The only man who has the right to say that he is justified by grace alone is the man who has left all to follow Christ. ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Mystical explanations are thought to be deep; the truth is that they are not even shallow. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche
The talent for self-justification is surely the finest flower of human evolution, the greatest achievement of the human brain. When it comes to justifying actions, every human being acquires the intelligence of an Einstein, the imagination of a Shakespeare, and the subtlety of a Jesuit. ~ Michael Foley
There is only one justification for having sinned, and that is to be glad of it. ~ H. L. Mencken
ACCUSE, v.t. – To affirm another’s guilt or unworth; most commonly as a justification of ourselves for having wronged him. ~ Ambrose Bierce
Not until the creation and maintenance of decent conditions of life for all people are recognized and accepted as a common obligation of all people and all countries – not until then shall we, with a certain degree of justification, be able to speak of humankind as civilized. ~ Albert Einstein
We have more ability than will power, and it is often an excuse to ourselves that we imagine that things are impossible. ~ François de la Rochefoucauld
Two wrongs don’t make a right, but they make a good excuse. ~ Thomas Szasz
Explanation separates us from astonishment, which is the only gateway to the incomprehensible. ~ Eugene Ionesco
Just Above Sunset 