quería que vieses lo que es la verdadera bravura, en vez de hacerte la idea de que la bravura la encarna un hombre con un arma en la mano. Uno es valiente cuando, sabiendo que ha perdido ya antes de empezar, empieza a pesar de todo y sigue hasta el final pase lo que pase. Uno vence raras veces, pero alguna vez vence
I could not remember when the lines above Atticus’s moving finger separated into words, but I had stared at them all the evenings in my memory, listening to the news of the day, Bills to Be Enacted into Laws, the diaries of Lorenzo Dow—anything Atticus happened to be reading when I crawled into his lap every night. Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read.
A medida que crezcas, verás a los blancos estafando a los negros, todos los días de tu vida, pero te diré una cosa, y no la olvides: siempre que un hombre blanco abusa de un negro, no importa quién sea, ni cuán rico sea, ni cuán distinguida haya sido la familia de que procede, ese hombre blanco es basura.
Không cần thiết phải nói mọi điều mình biết. Như thế không đúng kiểu quý cô.Thứ hai, người ta không thích có ai đó xung quanh biết nhiều hơn họ. Nó làm cho học bực thêm. Cô sẽ không làm thay đổi được bất kỳ ai trong số họ bằng cách nói đúng, tự họ phải cảm thấy muốn học hỏi, và khi họ không muốn học, thi cô chẳng có thể làm gì ngoài việc im miệng hoặc nói bằng thứ ngôn ngữ của họ.
. . . you’ve got to do something about her, Aunty was saying. You’ve let things go on too long, Atticus, too long. I don’t see any harm in letting her go out there. Cal’d look after her there as well as she does here. Who was the her they were talking about? My heart sank: me. I felt the starched walls of a pink cotton penitentiary closing in on me, and for the second time in my life I thought of running away. Immediately. Atticus,
What’s a Hot Steam? asked Dill. Haven’t you ever walked along a lonesome road at night and passed by a hot place? Jem asked Dill. A Hot Steam’s somebody who can’t get to heaven, just wallows around on lonesome roads an‘ if you walk through him, when you die you’ll be one too, an’ you’ll go around at night suckin‘ people’s breath— How can you keep from passing through one? You can’t, said Jem. Sometimes they stretch all the way across the road, but if you hafta go through one you say, ‘Angel-bright, life-in-death; get off the road, don’t suck my breath.’ That keeps ‘em from wrapping around you—
One more thing, gentlemen, before I quit. Thomas Jefferson once said that all men are created equal, a phrase that the Yankees and the distaff side of the Executive branch in Washington are fond of hurling at us. There is a tendency in this year of grace, 1935, for certain people to use this phrase of context, to satisfy all conditions. The most ridiculous example I can think of is that people who run public education promote the stupid and idle along with the industrious—because all men are created equal, educators will gravely tell you, the children left behind suffer terrible feelings of inferiority. We know all men are not created equal in the sense some people would have us believe—some people are smarter than others, some people have more opportunity because they’re born with it, some men make more money than others, some ladies make better cake than others—some people are born gifted beyond the normal scope of men.But there is one way in this country which all men are created equal—there is one human institution that makes a pauper the equal of a Rockefeller, the stupid man equal of an Einstein, and an ignorant man equal of any college president. That institution, gentlemen, is a court. It can be the Supreme Court of the United States or the humblest J.P. court in the land, or this honourable court which you serve. Our courts have their faults, as does any human constitution, but in this country our courts are the great levellers, and in our courts all men are created equal.I’m no idealist to believe firmly in the integrity of our courts and in the jury system—that is no ideal to me, it is a living, working reality. Gentlemen, a court is no better than each man of you sitting before me on this jury. A court is only as sound as its jury, and a jury is only as sound as the men who make it up. I am confident that you gentlemen will review without passion the evidence you have heard, come to a decision, and restore this defendant to his family. In the name of God, do your duty.
Kış günleri beni saatlerce ağaçevde oturmuş okul bahçesini seyrederken görebilirdiniz, Jem'in bana verdiği, büyütme gücü iki olan teleskopla o çocuk kalabalığına bakar, onların oyunlarını öğrenir, körebe oynayan ve yerinde duramayan çocuk grubunun içinde Jem'in kırmızı ceketini takip eder, gizlice onların şanssızlıklarını, küçük zaferlerini paylaşırdım.
Ladies seemed to live in faint horror of men, seemed unwilling to approve wholeheartedly of them. But I liked them. There was something about them, no matter how much they cussed and drank and gambled and chewed; no matter how undelectable they were, there was something about them that I instinctively liked
This is the last straw, Atticus, Aunt Alexandra said. Depends on how you look at it, he said. What was one Negro, more or less, among two hundred of ’em? He wasn’t Tom to them, he was an escaping prisoner. Atticus leaned against the refrigerator, pushed up his glasses, and rubbed his eyes. We had such a good chance, he said. I told him what I thought, but I couldn’t in truth say that we had more than a good chance. I guess Tom was tired of white men’s chances and preferred to take his own.
I can’t say I approve of everything he does, Maudie, but he’s my brother, and I just want to know when this will ever end. Her voice rose: It tears him to pieces. He doesn’t show it much, but it tears him to pieces. I’ve seen him when—what else do they want from him, Maudie, what else? What does who want, Alexandra? Miss Maudie asked. I mean this town. They’re perfectly willing to let him do what they’re too afraid to do themselves—it might lose ’em a nickel. They’re perfectly willing to let him wreck his health doing what they’re afraid to do, they’re— Be quiet, they’ll hear you, said Miss Maudie. Have you ever thought of it this way, Alexandra? Whether Maycomb knows it or not, we’re paying the highest tribute we can pay a man. We trust him to do right. It’s that simple. Who? Aunt Alexandra never knew she was echoing her twelve-year-old nephew. The handful of people in this town who say that fair play is not marked White Only; the handful of people who say a fair trial is for everybody, not just us; the handful of people with enough humility to think, when they look at a Negro, there but for the Lord’s kindness am I. Miss Maudie’s old crispness was returning: The handful of people in this town with background, that’s who they are. Had
— Не трябва винаги да показваш всичко, което знаеш. Такова нещо не подхожда за жени… и после, хората не обичат, когато някой е по-умен от тях. Дразнят се. Ти никого не можеш да промениш, като му приказваш правилно. Хората трябва сами да имат желание да учат, а когато нямат желание, нищо не може да се направи, освен да си мълчиш и да приказваш като тях.