Marilyn Berko

“There is nothing wrong with underlining personal agency, but there is something unfair about using personal responsibility as a basis for assigning blame while simultaneously denying those who are being blamed the opportunity to exert agency in their lives”
― Paul Farmer, Infections and Inequalities: The Modern Plagues

“the basis of our preferential option for the poor to say: I accompany them not because they are all good, or because I am all good, but because God is good.”
― Paul Farmer, In the Company of the Poor: Conversations with Dr. Paul Farmer and Fr. Gustavo Gutierrez

“WL’s [White Liberals] think all the world’s problems can be fixed without any cost to themselves. We don’t believe that. There’s a lot to be said for sacrifice, remorse, even pity. It’s what separates us from roaches”
― Paul Farmer, Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World

“Human rights violations are not accidents; they are not random in distribution or effect. Rights violations are, rather, symptoms of deeper pathologies of power and are linked intimately to the social conditions that so often determine who will suffer abuse and who will be shielded from harm”
― Paul Farmer, Pathologies of Power: Health, Human Rights, and the New War on the Poor