abuse

The best security against revolution is in constant correction of abuses and the introduction of needed improvements. It is the neglect of timely repair that makes rebuilding necessary.

Books are the best of things, well used; abused, among the worst. What is the right use? What is the one end, which all means go to effect? They are for nothing but to inspire.

We shall never understand the natural environment until we see it as a living organism. Land can be healthy or sick, fertile or barren, rich or poor, lovingly nurtured or bled white. Our present attitudes and laws governing the ownership and use of land represent an abuse of the concept of private property.... Today you can murder land for private profit. You can leave the corpse for all to see and nobody calls the cops.

Four characteristics constitute anyone who possesses them a sheer hypocrite, and anyone who possesses one of them possesses a characteristic of hypocrisy till he abandons it: when he is trusted he betrays his trust, when he talks he lies, when he makes a covenant he acts treacherously and when he quarrels he abuses.

If the cruelties of slavery could not stop us, the opposition we now surely fail. . . . Because the goal of America is freedom, abused and scorned tho' we may be, our destiny is tied up with America's destiny.

Censorship is almost systematically the weapon of first resort for governments in uncertain political situations. So not only are the famous writers and bold journalists in danger; at every level of public and private life, the freedoms to think, read or write are denied. In the absence of a free press, other human rights abuses flourish unabated. Nothing is reported, criticized, questioned. The example of imprisonment, torture or execution imposes a further silence. A blindly obedient mob mentality is encouraged, driven by extremist religious or ethnic loyalties. The citizens do not know what is happening. Fear and ignorance permeate discussion.

A man possessed of splendid talents, which he often abused, and of a sound judgment, the admonitions of which he often neglected; a man who succeeded only in an inferior department of his art, but who in that department succeeded pre-eminently.

Power is what men seek, and any group that gets it will abuse it. It is the same story.

The real sin against life is to abuse and destroy beauty, even one's own - even more, one's own, for that has been put in our care and we are responsible for its well-being.

To inflict cruelties on defenceless creatures, or condone such acts, is to abuse one of the cardinal tenets of a civilized society - reverence for life.