Home > Work > Just Mercy (Adapted for Young Adults): A True Story of the Fight for Justice
1 " My work has taught me a vital lesson. Each of us is more than the worse thing we've done. I am persuaded that the opposite of poverty is not wealth; the opposite of poverty is justice. "
― Bryan Stevenson , Just Mercy (Adapted for Young Adults): A True Story of the Fight for Justice
2 " We are all implicated when we allow others to be mistreated. An absence of compassion can corrupt the decency of a community, a state, an entire nation. Fear and anger can make us cruel and abusive. We all suffer from the absence of mercy and we harm ourselves as much as we victimize others. "
3 " I've come to believe that the true measure of our commitment to justice, fairness, and equality cannot be measured by how we treat the rich, the respected, and the privileged among us. The true measure of our character is how we treat the poor, the disfavored, the accused, the incarcerated, and the condemned. "
4 " You can't effectively fight abusive power, poverty, inequality, illness, oppression, or injustice and not be broken by it. We are all broken by something. We have all hurt someone and have been hurt. We all share the condition of brokenness even if our brokenness is not equivalent. "
5 " I am more than broken. In fact, there is a strength, a power even, in understanding brokenness. Embracing our brokenness creates a desire for mercy, and perhaps a need to show mercy to others, too. When you experience mercy, you begin to recognize the humanity that resides in each of us. "
6 " I didn't deserve reconciliation or love in that moment, but that's how mercy works. The power of just mercy is that it belongs to the undeserving. "
7 " It seems to me that we've been quick to celebrate the achievements of the civil rights movement and slow to recognize the lasting damage of marginalization and subordination done... "
8 " I decided that I was supposed to be here to catch some of the stones people cast at each other. ...I told them we have to be stonecatchers. "
9 " The power of just mercy is that it belongs to the undeserving. It's when mercy is least expected that it's most powerful. "