A quotation from Robert Ingersoll

What is blasphemy? I will give you a definition; I will give you my thought upon this subject. What is real blasphemy?
   To live on the unpaid labor of other men — that is blasphemy.
   To enslave your fellow-man, to put chains upon his body — that is blasphemy.
   To enslave the minds of men, to put manacles upon the brain, padlocks upon the lips — that is blasphemy.
   To deny what you believe to be true, to admit to be true what you believe to be a lie — that is blasphemy.
   To strike the weak and unprotected, in order that you may gain the applause of the ignorant and superstitious mob — that is blasphemy.
   To persecute the intelligent few, at the command of the ignorant many — that is blasphemy.
   To forge chains, to build dungeons, for your honest fellow-men — that is blasphemy.
   To pollute the souls of children with the dogma of eternal pain — that is blasphemy.
   To violate your conscience — that is blasphemy.
   The jury that gives an unjust verdict, and the judge who pronounces an unjust sentence, are blasphemers.
   The man who bows to public opinion against his better judgment and against his honest conviction, is a blasphemer.

Robert Green Ingersoll (1833-1899) American lawyer, freethinker, orator
Speech (1887-05) to the Jury, Trial of C. B. Reynolds for Blasphemy, Morristown, New Jersey

More about this quote: wist.info/ingersoll-robert-gre…

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Plain Mean-Spirited: The Joke On This Novelty T-Shirt Is Punching Down

https://fed.brid.gy/r/https://clickhole.com/plain-mean-spirited-the-joke-on-this-novelty-t-shirt-is-punching-down/

Good Work, Donnie

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A quotation from Victor Hugo

We might have understood and admired in him protest in the name of legality and liberty, proud opposition, legitimate but perilous resistance to the all-powerful Napoleon. But what pleases us in the treatment of those on their way up is less pleasing in the treatment of those on their way down. We approve of fighting only so long as there is danger, and in any case only those who fought in the first instance have the right to be exterminators at the last. He who has not been a persistent opponent in times of prosperity should remain silent when the downfall comes. Challenging success gives the only legitimacy to prosecuting failure.
 
[Nous eussions compris et admiré la protestation au nom du droit et de la liberté, l’opposition fière, la résistance périlleuse et juste à Napoléon tout-puissant. Mais ce qui nous plaît vis-à-vis de ceux qui montent nous plaît moins vis-à-vis de ceux qui tombent. Nous n’aimons le combat que tant qu’il y a du danger ; et, dans tous les cas, les combattants de la première heure ont seuls le droit d’être les exterminateurs de la dernière. Qui n’a pas été accusateur opiniâtre pendant la prospérité doit se taire devant l’écroulement. Le dénonciateur du succès est le seul légitime justicier de la chute.]

Victor Hugo (1802-1885) French writer
Les Misérables, Part 1 “Fantine,” Book 1 “An Upright Man,” ch. 11 (1.1.11) (1862) [tr. Donougher (2013)]

More info about (and translations of) this quote: wist.info/hugo-victor/78713/

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