Quotations and Literature Forum

In context:

I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and willingly accepts the penalty by staying in jail in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the very highest respect for law.
-Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968), U.S. clergyman, civil rights leader. open letter to clergymen, Apr. 16, 1963. “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” Why We Can’t Wait (1963).

Others:

Injustice is relatively easy to bear; what stings is justice.
-H.L. (Henry Lewis) Mencken (1880–1956), U.S. journalist. Prejudices, ch. 3, Third Series (1922).

The injustice of defeat lies in the fact that its most innocent victims are made to look like heartless accomplices. It is impossible to see behind defeat, the sacrifices, the austere performance of duty, the self-discipline and the vigilance that are there—those things the god of battle does not take account of.
-Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (1900–1944), French aviator, author. Flight to Arras, ch. 15 (1942).