The Cry for Justice: An Anthology of the Literature of Social Protest: The writings of philosophers, poets, novelists, social reformers, and others who have voiced the struggle against social injustice; selected from twenty-five languages; covering a period of five thousand years
General
The Cry for Justice: An Anthology of the Literature of Social Protest: The writings of philosophers, poets, novelists, social reformers, and others who have voiced the struggle against social injustice; selected from twenty-five languages; covering a period of five thousand years
Social justice; Social problems
week more, where children will not have to starve any more,
where women no more will have to go and prostitute themselves;
where at last there will not be any more slaves, any more
masters, but one great family of friends and brothers. It may
be, gentlemen of the jury, that you do not believe in that. It
may be that we are dreamers; it may be that we are fanatics,
Mr. District Attorney. But so was a fanatic Socrates, who
instead of acknowledging the philosophy of the aristocrats of
Athens, preferred to drink the poison. And so was a fanatic
the Saviour Jesus Christ, who instead of acknowledging that
Pilate, or that Tiberius was emperor of Rome, and instead of
acknowledging his submission to all the rulers of the time and
all the priestcraft of the time, preferred the cross between
two thieves.
BY JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
(German philosopher and poet, 1749-1832)
All those who oppose intellectual truths merely stir up the
fire; the cinders fly about and set fire to that which else
they had not touched.
Essay on Liberty
BY JOHN STUART MILL
(English philosopher and economist, 1806-1873)
Mankind can hardly be too often reminded, that there was once
a man named Socrates, between whom and the legal authorities
and public opinion of his time, there took place a memorable
collision. Born in an age and country abounding in individual
greatness, this man has been handed down to us by those who
best knew both him and the age, as the most virtuous man in it;
while _we_ know him as the head and prototype of all subsequent
teachers of virtue, the source equally of the lofty inspiration
of Plato and the judicious utilitarianism of Aristotle, the
two headsprings of ethical as of all other philosophy. This
acknowledged master of all the eminent thinkers who have since
lived--whose fame, still growing after more than two thousand
years, all but outweighs the whole remainder of the names
which make his native city illustrious--was put to death by
his countrymen, after a judicial conviction, for impiety and
immorality. Impiety, in denying the Gods recognized by the
State; indeed his accusers asserted (see the "Apologia") that
he believed in no gods at all. Immorality, in being, by his
doctrines and instructions, a "corrupter of youth." Of these
charges the tribunal, there is every ground for believing,
honestly found him guilty, and condemned the man who probably
of all then born had deserved best of mankind to be put to
death as a criminal.
FROM THE EPISTLE OF JAMES
So speak ye, and so do, as they that shall be judged by the law
of liberty.
The Walker
BY ARTURO M. GIOVANNITTI
(See page 296)
I hear footsteps over my head all night.
They come and they go. Again they come and they go all night.
They come one eternity in four paces and they go one eternity
in four paces, and between the coming and the going there is
Silence and the Night and the Infinite.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account