Justification Quotes

After years of working with missionaries, I am tempted to conclude that their endeavors merely prolong a dying race's agonies for ten or twenty years. The merciful plowman shoots a trusty horse grown too old for service. As philanthropists, might it not be our duty to likewise ameliorate the savages' sufferings by hastening their extinction? Think of your Red Indians, Adam, think on the treaties you Americans abrogate & renege on, time & time & time again. More humane, surely & more honest, just to knock the savages on the head & get it over with?

The world hates the truth and all that share it, and so if you share truth eventually you will be hated by the world if you are not ready.

A compass calibrated by my greed is a rather shrewd way to legitimize my agenda. However, true north on a compass such as this is a straight line to the edge of a really big cliff.

Apologies require taking full responsibility. No half-truths, no partial admissions, no rationalizations, no finger pointing, and no justifications belong in any apology.

[P]erhaps you notice how the denial is so often the preface to the justification.

My head is a prison I’ve been locked in from the start,So if I'm treated like a criminal I might as well play the part.(attrib: E. Tancarville)

To incessantly blame others for my shortcomings is cowardice borne of fear, fed by fear, and haunted by fear. To be steadfastly accountable for my shortcomings is bravery borne of God, fed by God, and blessed by God.

We work hard to believe that our actions really don’t affect others all that much because we want the license to act without thinking all that much.

I remember an hypothesis argued upon by the young students, when I was at St. Omer's, and maintained with much learning and pleasantry on both sides, 'Whether supposing that the flavour of a big who obtained his death by whipping (per flagellationem extremem) superadded a pleasure upon the palate of a man more intense than any possible suffering we can conceive in the animal, is man justified in using that method of putting an animal to death?' I forget the decision.

People with low self-confidence and self-esteem often feel nervous about antagonizing others and tend to rate others’ needs more highly than their own.

A God out there and values out there, if they existed, would be utterly useless and unintelligible to us. There is nothing to be gained by nostalgia for the old objectivism, which was in any case used only to justify arrogance, tyranny, and cruelty. People [forget] ... how utterly hateful the old pre-humanitarianism world was.

A hundred words put together to formulate an excuse will never resolve a conflict, political justifications are silly lies.

Unable to penetrate to the secret place of his soul where his motives lay hidden, he believed that a supernatural voice had called him onward, and that a supernatural power had obstructed his retreat.

Concepts that have proven useful in ordering things easily achieve such an authority over us that we forget their earthly origins and accept them as unalterable givens. Thus they come to be stamped as “necessities of thought”, “a priori givens”, etc. The path of scientific advance is often made impassable for a long time through such errors. For that reason, it is by no means an idle game if we become practiced in analyzing the long commonplace concepts and exhibiting those circumstances upon which their justification and usefulness depend, how they have grown up, individually, out of the givens of experience. By this means, their all-too-great authority will be broken. They will be removed if they cannot be properly legitimated, corrected if their correlation with given things be far too superfluous, replaced by others if a new system can be established that we prefer for whatever reason.

The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.

It's worse for you. You want the guilt to absolve you. Just like you want your wife and child to absolve you. Once absolved, you can kill or take soup.

Do not justify art, once you do, it limits the feelings it is apt to inflict. Art with Boundaries shadows all its principles.

It is through justification of one's actions that a completely guiltless life is possible.

How many times has our conscience firmly prompted us to ‘draw the line,’ and we showed up with an eraser?

In short, an astonishingly broad spectrum of theologies of justification existed in the later medieval period, encompassing practically every option that had not been specifically condemned as heretical by the Council of Carthage. In the absence of any definitive magisterial pronouncement concerning which of these options (or even what range of options) could be considered authentically catholic, it was left to each theologian to reach his own decision in this matter. A self-perpetuating doctrinal pluralism was thus an inevitability.

Most people, if they know they have done wrong, foolishly suppose they can conceal their error by defending it, and finding a justification for it; but in my belief there is only one medicine for an evil deed, and that is for the guilty man to admit his guilt and show that he is sorry for it. Such an admission will make the consequences easier for the victim to bear, and the guilty man himself, by plainly showing his distress at former transgressions, will find good grounds of hope for avoiding similar transgressions in the future.

I paved the path to the very place I don’t want to be. But passing the blame off to someone else doesn’t put me any place else.

Incurable diseases will eventually force mankind to justify disruptive nanotech and genetic engineering.

Sin is the transgression of the law, the death of Christ is the satisfaction of the law, justification is the verdict of the law, and sanctification is the believer's fulfillment of the law.

Every transgression and disobedience receives a just recompense of reward, except with those who truly love themselves.

If you are uncertain or in confusion don't take any decisions. If you feel you can do something just feel it and do it. you cannot justify your actions that you do for others when you are unstable.People will feel for something all the time and you cannot make them happy anyway...

Survival justifies any means.

I have no doubt that your acceptance of Christ coincided with some very positive changes in your life. Perhaps you now love other people in a way that you never imagined possible. You may even experience feelings of bliss while praying. I don’t wish to denigrate any of these experiences. I would point out, however, that billions of other human beings, in every time and place, have had similar experiences - but they had them while thinking about Krishna, or Allah, or the Buddha, while making art or music, or while contemplating the beauty of Nature. There is no question that it is possible for people to have profoundly transformative experiences. And there is no question that it is possible for them to misinterpret these experiences, and to further delude themselves about the nature of reality. You are, of course, right to believe that there is more to life than simply understanding the structure and contents of the universe. But this does not make unjustified (and unjustifiable) claims about its structure and contents any more respectable.

Evil would never bring Good, however much they wanted to believe that it would. By the time they discovered the truth, it would be too late.

Psychobabble attempts to redefine the entire English language just to make a correct statement incorrect. Psychology is the study of why someone would try to do this.

Mediocrity is ‘purpose’ left to rot in minds ensnared in the deluded rationalization that vision is nothing more than a collection of fanciful dreams constructed by an imaginary God.

Oh yes, I am frequently driven to an enraged frenzy by the blatantly crass actions of others. But to be painfully honest, that anger is much less driven by the reality of their actions and far more fueled by the realization that everything I am is everything that I hate in them.

Show the world the man you think you are, and I will show the world the man you really are...

The Spirit of God draws or leads the sinner from one phase to another, gradually, in proportion as one is found having a disposition to responsive hearing. Grace flows ordinarily from prevenient grace through the grace of baptism through the grace of justification toward sanctifying grace leading toward consummation in glory. The power by which one cooperates with grace is grace itself. In this way God draws all to himself, eliciting a hunger for righteousness and a desire for truth.

There were a lot of gods. Gods always come in handy, they justify almost anything.

Darkness should never be an excuse to quit, for with God, darkness is the exact stuff that light was built for.

After so many years even the fire of passion dies, and with it what was believed the light of the truth. Who of us is able to say now whether Hector or Achilles was right, Agamemnon or Priam, when they fought over the beauty of a woman who is now dust and ashes?

It's only when we understand [Jesus'] presence in the church as being the fulfillment of God's promise in Zephaniah 3:17 to "quiet you with his love" and "rejoice over you with singing" that a crucial aspect of our salvation comes into perspective. Jesus didn't coldly settle accounts for us. He doesn't bark us into improving ourselves. He united us to himself in the glorious communion he has enjoyed for eternity with his heavenly Father. He resides within us to heal the broken places and refresh cauterized hearts. He sings us into a new mode of existence.... When, as Paul does, we imagine Jesus singing nations into submission to his rule, our hearts come joyfully under the sway of a love that is infinite and powerful.

The world brazenly touts freedom as both the inalienable right and morally liberating justification to mindlessly play in the filth that lies all around me. And the slight bit of sanity that yet remains within me asks, ‘what raging madness would prompt me to incessantly wallow in the very things that will eventually swallow me?

I always make sure that the world will prove me right. It gives me the freedom to contradict myself.

To use the past to justify the present is bad enough—but it’s just as bad to use the present to justify the past.

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.

My first mistake is to humanize God. My second mistake is to hold those wretched human characteristics up against all of the majestic things that I sense God should be. The blatant discrepancy which is certain to ensue then allows me to not only justify my rejection of Him, it grants me unbridled permission to discount His existence altogether. And that third and final mistake is without a doubt the most costly of all.

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.

Our guilt has its uses. It justifies much in the lives of others.

The ones with no imagination are always the quickest to justify themselves

If you punish them, they are your slaves and if you forgive them they are your brothers.

I have heard several people justify working long hours and getting home from work late it night by saying things like, “I have to put in all this time to make up for the vacation we’re going to take this summer.” I bet if I asked your kids, they’d say that they’d rather have you home every night to play with them than the weeklong summer trip to the lake where you’re stressed out the whole time anyways.

The most powerful and courageous heroes I know are those who bite their tongues when justification, validation, temptation, or vengeance would have them strike with truthful, hurtful words.

Luther’s doctrine of justification depends upon two things: the constant preaching of the wrath of God in the face of sin; and the realization that every Christian is at once righteous and a sinner, thus needing the hammer of the law to terrify and break the sinful conscience.

Predestination therefore, as it regards the thing itself, is the Decree of the good pleasure of God in Christ, by which He resolved within Himself from all eternity, to justify, adopt, and endow with everlasting life, to the praise of His own glorious grace, believers on whom He had decreed to bestow faith.

To make it quite practical I have a very simple test. After I have explained the way of Christ to somebody I say “Now, are you ready to say that you are a Christian?” And they hesitate. And then I say, “What’s the matter? Why are you hesitating?” And so often people say, “I don’t feel like I’m good enough yet. I don’t think I’m ready to say I’m a Christian now.” And at once I know that I have been wasting my breath. They are still thinking in terms of themselves. They have to do it. It sounds very modest to say, “Well, I don’t think I’ good enough,” but it’s a very denial of the faith. The very essence of the Christian faith is to say that He is good enough and I am in Him. As long as you go on thinking about yourself like that and saying, “I’m not good enough; Oh, I’m not good enough,” you are denying God – you are denying the gospel – you are denying the very essence of the faith and you will never be happy. You think you’re better at times and then again you will find you are not as good at other times than you thought you were. You will be up and down forever. How can I put it plainly? It doesn’t matter if you have almost entered into the depths of hell. It does not matter if you are guilty of murder as well as every other vile sin. It does not matter from the standpoint of being justified before God at all. You are no more hopeless than the most moral and respectable person in the world.

Now the valley cried with anger, "Mount your horses draw your sword." And they killed the mountain people, so they won their just reward. Now they stood beside the treasure, on the mountain dark and red. Turned the stone and looked beneath it. "Peace on earth" was all it said. Go ahead and hate your neighbor,go ahead and cheat a friend. Do it in the name of heaven, you can justify it in the end. There won't be any trumpets blowing come the judgment day. On the bloody morning after one tin soldier rides away.

Stop making excuses for other people. For why they do certain things. For how they treat people or how they treat you. Giving excuse and justifcation gives defense which lets them act however they want. It allows them because you tolerated it. Don’t accept less than what you’re worth because you’re worth a lot.

The truth no matter how hard it is to bear, must be accepted and confronted head on because it is real. Businesses and people who accept truth soar.

If I were to believe in God enough to call him a murderer, then I might also believe enough that he, as a spirit, exists beyond death; and therefore only he could do it righteously. For the physical being kills a man and hatefully sends him away, whereas God, the spiritual being, kills a man and lovingly draws him nigh.

Treat me well and I will tell... Treat me bad and I feel sad. Treat me good, change my mood. Treat me sweet and call it quits!

If you have the woman you love, what more do you need? Well, besides an alibi for the time of her husband’s murder.

We spend most of the time justifying the situation and not finding the real problem thus leaving minimal chance of solutions.

The man of science has learned to believe in justification, not by faith, but by verification.