Words on Love for our Fellow Man

 

Respect.Decency.Hope.Love

The following selection of quotes are those taken from movie lines. Movies that have been recognized as deserving of an Oscar win or nomination. They speak of respect, decency, hope, and love for their fellow man. These are the hallmarks of good behavior. They begin and end by men who recognize the futility of violence. 

Violence never really deals with the basic evil of the situation. Violence may murder the murderer, but it doesn’t murder murder. Violence may murder the liar, but it doesn’t murder lie; it doesn’t establish truth. Violence may even murder the dishonest man, but it doesn’t murder dishonesty. Violence may go to the point of murdering the hater, but it doesn’t murder hate. It may increase hate. It is always a descending spiral leading nowhere. This is the ultimate weakness of violence: It multiplies evil and violence in the universe. It doesn’t solve any problems.  

~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind.

~ spoken by Ben Kingsley as Mahatma Gandhi, Gandhi

 Never hate your enemies. It affects your judgment.

~ spoken by Marlon Brando as Don Vito Corleone, The Godfather

Racist? You dare call me racist? Well I say unto you, what does it matter the color of a man’s skin if witnesses perjure themselves. If a prosecutor enlists the perjurers. When a district attorney throws a man to the mob for political gain, and men of the cloth, men of God, take the prime cuts? Is that justice? I don’t hear you... .

Let me tell you what justice is. Justice is the law, and the law is man’s feeble attempt to set down the principles of decency. Decency! And decency is not a deal. It isn’t an angle, or a contract, or a hustle! Decency... decency is what your grandmother taught you. It’s in your bones! Now you go home. Go home and be decent people. Be decent.

~ spoken by Morgan Freeman as Judge Leonard White, Bonfire of the Vanities

Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things and no good thing ever dies.

~ spoken by Tim Robbins as Andy Dufrense, The Shawshank Redemption 

You see, boys forget what their country means by just reading The Land of the Free in history books. Then they get to be men they forget even more. Liberty’s too precious a thing to be buried in books, Miss Saunders. Men should hold it up in front of them every single day of their lives and say: I’m free to think and to speak. My ancestors couldn’t, I can, and my children will. Boys ought to grow up remembering that.

~ spoken by James Stewart as Jefferson Smith, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington

I have to remind myself that some birds aren’t meant to be caged. Their feathers are just too bright. And when they fly away, the part of you that knows it was a sin to lock them up does rejoice. Still, the place you live in is that much more drab and empty that they’re gone.

~ spoken by Morgan Freeman as Ellis Boyd “Red” Redding, The Shawshank Redemption

I wouldn’t give you two cents for all your fancy rules if, behind them, they didn’t have a little bit of plain, ordinary, everyday kindness and a little looking out for the other fella, too.

~ spoken by James Stewart as Jefferson Smith, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington

If we don’t come together right now on this hallowed ground, we too will be destroyed, just like they were. I don’t care if you like each other or not, but you will respect each other. And maybe... I don’t know, maybe we’ll learn to play this game like men.

~spoken by Denzel Washington as Coach Herman Boone, Remember the Titans

Well, it was a million tiny little things that, when you added them all up, they meant we were supposed to be together … and I knew it. I knew it the very first time I touched her. It was like coming home … only to no home I’d ever known … I was just taking her hand to help her out of a car and I knew. It was like … magic.

~ spoken by Tom Hanks as Sam Baldwin, Sleepless in Seattle

I am nothing special; just a common man with common thoughts, and I’ve led a common life. There are no monuments dedicated to me and my name will soon be forgotten. But in one respect I have succeeded as gloriously as anyone who’s ever lived: I’ve loved another with all my heart and soul; and to me, this has always been enough.

~ spoken by James Garner as Noah Calhoun, The Notebook

Victory attained by violence is tantamount to defeat, for it is only momentary. 

~ Mahatma Gandhi

Photo Courtesy of Ian Schneider