Bystanders Quotes

If I sit next to a madman as he drives a car into a group of innocent bystanders, I can't, as a Christian, simply wait for the catastrophe, then comfort the wounded and bury the dead. I must try to wrestle the steering wheel out of the hands of the driver.

What hurts the victim most is not the cruelty of the oppressor, but the silence of the bystander.

I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.

Take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim.

There are no innocent civilians, so it doesn't bother me so much to be killing innocent bystanders.

I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation.

I come from a people who gave the Ten Commandments to the world. Time has come to strenghten them by three additional ones, which we ought to adopt and commit ourselves to: thou shall not be a perpetrator; thou shall not be a victim; and thou shall never, but never, be a bystander.

There are no bystanders in life [...] Our humanity makes us each a part of something greater than ourselves.

It is very tempting to take the side of the perpetrator. All the perpetrator asks is that the bystander do nothing. He appeals to the universal desire to see, hear, and speak no evil. The victim, on the contrary, asks the bystander to share the burden of pain. The victim demands action, engagement, and remembering.

There are no innocent bystanders.

He was breakfasting in the marketplace, and the bystanders gathered round him with cries of "dog." "It is you who are dogs," cried he, "when you stand round and watch me at my breakfast."

Most evil in the world is only partly because of an evil person. Most of it is because of the complicity of bystanders.

There are moments in our lives when we summon the courage to make choices that go against reason, against common sense and the wise counsel of people we trust. But we lean forward nonetheless because, despite all risks and rational argument, we believe that the path we are choosing is right and best thing to do. We refuse to be bystanders, even if we do not know exactly where our actions will lead.

History is said to be written by the victors. Fiction, by contrast, is largely the work of injured bystanders.

There are no innocent bystanders ... what are they doing there in the first place?

The horror of the Holocaust is not that it deviated from human norms; the horror is that it didn't. What happened may happen again, to others not necessarily Jews, perpetrated by others, not necessarily Germans. We are all possible victims, possible perpetrators, possible bystanders.

All male animals, including men, when they are in love, are apt to behave in ways that seem ludicrous to bystanders.

Beauty is the mark God sets on virtue. Every natural action is graceful; every heroic act is also decent, and causes the place and the bystanders to shine.

One of the ill effects of cruelty is that it makes the bystanders cruel.

I've never had Internet access. Actually, I have looked at things on other people's computers as a bystander. A few times in my life I've opened email accounts, twice actually, but it's something I don't want in my life right now.

In reviewing the history of the English Government, its wars and its taxes, a bystander, not blinded by prejudice nor warped by interest, would declare that taxes were not raised to carry on wars, but that wars were raised to carry on taxes.

The torments of martyrdom are probably most keenly felt by the bystanders.

Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.

A person seldom falls sick but the bystanders are animated with a faint hope that he will die.

The future is in our hands. We are not hapless bystanders. We can influence whether we have a planet of peace, social justice, equity, and growth or a planet of unbridgeable differences between peoples, wasted resources, corruption, and terror.