Justify

Famous quotes containing the word justify:

“It is not to be forgotten that what we call rational grounds for our beliefs are often extremely irrational attempts to justify our instincts.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)

“If we justify war, it is because all peoples always justify the traits of which they find themselves possessed, not because war will bear an objective examination of its merits.”
—Ruth Benedict (1887–1948)

“One of the main tasks of adolescence is to achieve an identity—not necessarily a knowledge of who we are, but a clarification of the range of what we might become, a set of self-references by which we can make sense of our responses, and justify our decisions and goals.”
—Terri Apter (20th century)