Selected justice quotes

1. Who made the world I cannot tell; 'Tis made, and here am I in hell. My hand, though now my knuckles bleed, I never soiled with such a deed.

2. Justice should be cheap but judges expensive.

3. Why should there not be a patient confidence in the ultimate justice of the people? Is there any better or equal hope in the world?

4. I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me. Now, at the end of three years struggle the nation's condition is not what either party, or any man devised, or expected. God alone can claim it. Whither it is tending seems plain. If God now wills the removal of a great wrong, and wills also that we of the North as well as you of the South, shall pay fairly for our complicity in that wrong, impartial history will find therein new cause to attest and revere the justice and goodness of God.

5. The probability that we may fail in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just.

6. I have always found that mercy bears richer fruits than strict justice.

7. The best way to get a bad law repealed is to enforce it strictly.

8. What shall we think of a well-adjusted slave?

9. The man who barely abstains from violating either the person, or the estate, or the reputation of his neighbours, has surely very little positive merit. He fulfils, however, all the rules of what is peculiarly called justice, and does every thing which his equals can with propriety force him to do, or which they can punish him for not doing. We may often fulfil all the rules of justice by sitting still and doing nothing.

10. Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent.

11. But now, instead of discussion and argument, brute force rises up to the rescue of discomfited error, and crushes truth and right into the dust. 'Might makes right,' and hoary folly totters on in her mad career escorted by armies and navies.

12. I believe in Providence and I believe Providence to be just. Therefore I believe that Providence always rewards the strong, the industrious, and the upright.

13. I, for my part, acknowledge another precept which says that man must deal the final blow to those whose downfall is destined by God.

14. The travesty of slavery wasn't physical abuse. It was the moral abuse of looking at a human being as if they are an animal.

15. I will stand against those who see terrorism when Americans die, but who see suicide bombers who kill Israelis and believe that that is just part of the negotiating process.

16. When the imagination sleeps, words are emptied of their meaning: a deaf population absent-mindedly registers the condemnation of a man. ... there is no other solution but to speak out and show the obscenity hidden under the verbal cloak.

17. Does the end justify the means? That is possible. But what will justify the end? To that question, which historical thought leaves pending, rebellion replies: the means.

18. If you keep on excusing, you eventually give your blessing to the slave camp, to cowardly force, to organized executioners, to the cynicism of great political monsters; you finally hand over your brothers.

19. The current motto for all of us can only be this: without giving up anything on the plane of justice, yield nothing on the plane of freedom.

20. There is merely bad luck in not being loved; there is misfortune in not loving. All of us, today, are dying of this misfortune. For violence and hatred dry up the heart itself; the long fight for justice exhausts the love that nevertheless gave birth to it.

21. An autocratic system of coercion, in my opinion, soon degenerates. For force always attracts men of low morality, and I believe it to be an invariable rule that tyrants of genius are succeeded by scoundrels. For this reason I have always been passionately opposed to systems such as we see in Italy and Russia to-day.

22. The tribunal here and your American newspapers talk so much about our sharp Nazi methods, but do you realize that within the past year, since the defeat of Germany, 1 million Germans have been evicted from what was originally German territory and which has now been given to Poland? No League of Nations or other body intervened.

23. Accordingly, death is a harbor of peace for the just, but is believed a shipwreck for the wicked.

24. Going to where the silence is. That is the responsibility of a journalist: giving a voice to those who have been forgotten, forsaken, and beaten down by the powerful.

25. These decrees of yours are no different from spiders' webs. They'll restrain anyone weak and insignificant who gets caught in them, but they'll be torn to shreds by people with power and wealth.

26. The wisdom of man never yet contrived a system of taxation that would operate with perfect equality.

27. Peace, above all things, is to be desired, but blood must sometimes be spilled to obtain it on equable and lasting terms.

28. The presumption of innocence only means you don't go right to jail.

29. We must never lose sight of the fact that the law has a moral foundation, and we must never fail to ask ourselves not only what the law is, but what the law should be.

30. Man, when perfected, is the best of animals, but when separated from law and justice, he is the worst of all.

31. The law is reason unaffected by desire.

32. When people are friends, they have no need of justice, but when they are just, they need friendship in addition.

33. All virtue is summed up in dealing justly.

34. Equality consists in the same treatment of similar persons.

35. It is in justice that the ordering of society is centered.

36. The only stable state is the one in which all men are equal before the law.

37. The virtue of justice consists in moderation, as regulated by wisdom.

38. The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal.

39. Those who excel in virtue have the best right of all to rebel, but then they are of all men the least inclined to do so.

40. To give a satisfactory decision as to the truth it is necessary to be rather an arbitrator than a party to the dispute.

41. Oh Biko, Biko, because Biko Yihla Moja, Yihla Moja - The man is dead.

42. A qui venge son pere, il n'est rien d'impossible.

43. A force d'etre juste on est souvent coupable.

44. Qui se venge a demi court lui-meme a sa peine: Il faut ou condamner ou couronner sa haine.

45. Le Roi, juste et prudent, ne veut que ce qu'il peut.

46. Here, first of all men for pure justice famed, And moral virtue, Aristocles lies; And if there e'er has lived one truly wise, This man was wiser still; too great for envy.

47. What's with the K-Mart thing, huh? Is it cuz I'm black? IS IT CUZ I'M BLACK?!?

48. The goal of a just society is inseparable from love and beauty.

49. One man's justice is another's injustice; one man's beauty another's ugliness; one man's wisdom another's folly.

50. God said, I am tired of kings, I suffer them no more; Up to my ear the morning brings The outrage of the poor.

51. 'There can't be any more Fallujahs. Fallujah is the 21st century equivalent of Guernica. We just went in and destroyed that city, drove the people out, killed them, thousands. We don't know how many.'

52. His dogmatism is more wild and personal than we are accustomed to, completely unspoiled by the hedging 'equanimity' that weakens the style and temperament of so many of our serious writers. His murderous intuitive phrases are famous; but at the same time his mind is essentially conservative and takes as much joy in rescuing the reputation of a sleeping good writer as in chloroforming a mediocre one.

53. Next morning I was up betimes -- I sent the Crier round, All with his bell and gold-laced hat to say I'd give a pound To find that little vulgar Boy, who'd gone and used me so; But when the Crier cried, 'O Yes!' the people cried, 'O No!'

54. I think that we could agree on what kind of a world we would all want to build. it would be a world of independent nations, moving toward international community, each of which protected and respected the basic human freedoms. It would be a world which demanded of each government that it accept its responsibility to insure social justice. It would be a world of constantly accelerating economic progress - not material welfare as an end in itself, but as a means to liberate the capacity of every human being to pursue his talents and to pursue his hopes. It would, in short, be a world that we would be proud to have built.

55. As long as men are hungry, and their children uneducated, and their crops destroyed by pestilence, the American Revolution will have a part to play. As long as men are not free - in their lives and in their opinions, their speech and their knowledge - that long will the American Revolution not be finished. (NYC, 6-15-65)

56. If we have to sacrifice and renounce things, we may do so in the full knowledge of the reasons and in the hope of a wonderful future to which we thereby acquire a right; what we cannot bear is that such sacrifices and deprivations should be imposed arbitrarily by an enemy, as a punishment.

57. Then what is the answer? - Not to be deluded by dreams. To know that great civilizations have broken down into violence, and their tyrants come, many times before. When open violence appears, to avoid it with honor or choose the least ugly faction; these evils are essential. To keep one's own integrity, be merciful and uncorrupted and not wish for evil; and not be duped By dreams of universal justice or happiness. These dreams will not be fulfilled.

58. I prefer to evaluate a film on the basis of what it intends to do, not on what I think it should have done.

59. At once maddeningly original and disarmingly humane, Roger Williams championed Native American rights, church-state separation, and an independent judiciary when each was considered rank heresy.

60. The English... justified their grabbing of Indian land by claiming that these simple folk did not really believe in property rights. On the contrary, Williams observed, 'the Natives are very exact and punctual in the bounds of their Lands, belonging to this or that Prince or People,' even bargaining among themselves for a small piece of ground.

61. My conscience compels me to make the following declaration. In the solitude of my prison cell I have come to the bitter recognition that I have sinned gravely against humanity. As Commandant of Auschwitz I was responsible for carrying out part of the cruel plans of the 'Third Reich' for human destruction. In so doing I have inflicted terrible wounds on humanity. I caused unspeakable suffering for the Polish people in particular. I am to pay for this with my life. May the Lord God forgive one day what I have done.

62. The idea of trying to cast blame on President Clinton is just wrong for many, many reasons, not the least of which is I don't think he deserves it.

63. Defending the mustazafin [the meek, the oppressed, the deprived, etc] is the way of Islam! In pursuit of the grand Islam, we support all oppressed peoples.

64. Enforce justice, do not justice only for others, seek it for yourselves as well. Justice is justice and cruelty and crime are cruelty and crime regardless of the source.

65. Islam does not favour unbridled, oppressive capitalism which deprives the masses. Rather, Islam condemns such practices severely in Quran and Tradition and regards it against social justice. Nor is Islam in accord with regimes like communism, Marxist-Leninism which oppose private ownership and favor common ownership.

66. Serve the oppressed, the needy and the slum-dwellers for they are our benefactors!

67. The Iranians want justice, liberty and independence and believe they can achieve them only by the light of Islam and its laws.

68. This man (meaning imam Ali) is the manifestation of all fairness and justice, he is the wonder of the universe and from the Beginning to Eternity, no man except His Holiness the Prophet (SAW) can match him in excellence.

69. Liberal sportswriters have pushed the notion that it's unfair that there haven't been more black quarterbacks, and I agree with that. I have simply said that their desire for McNabb to do well has caused them to rate him a little higher than perhaps he actually is.

70. Again, this is a willful and missing of the context of this program. We have discussed many of these phony soldiers over the course of the past few months. We discuss them constantly. MacBeth was just the latest. I have a press release here from the United States attorney's office, the Western District, State of Washington, September 21st of this year. Headline: 'Northwest Crackdown on Fake Veterans in Operation Stolen Valor - Phony vets scam more than 1.4 million and damage image of honorable veterans.

71. All these things that the Democrats have said over the years about quotas and affirmative action and discrimination and all that... if they really meant it, Hillary Clinton would stand aside and say, 'Senator Obama, it is your turn.'

72. This trade agreement fails on every count. I urge my colleagues to scrap it and tell the administration to come back with a deal that is fair to American businesses, workers and farmers, as well as the small businesses, workers and farmers of our trading partners.

73. We cannot allow the spectacle of constant executions to be swept under the rug. We know that already over 100 individuals who were put on death row have been released. And we should shudder to think how many people have been sent to their deaths that were innocent.

74. Is there anything in which the people of this age and country differ more from those of other lands and former times than in this - their ability to preserve order and protect rights without the aid of government? ... We are realizing the paradox, 'that country is governed best which is governed least.' I no longer fear lynch law. Let the people be intelligent and good, and I am not sure but their impulsive, instinctive verdicts and sentences and executions, unchecked by the rules and technicalities of law, are more likely to be according to substantial justice than the decisions of courts and juries.

75. You use the phrase 'brutal Rebels.' Don't be cheated in that way. There are enough 'brutal Rebels' no doubt, but we have brutal officers and men too. I have had men brutally treated by our own officers on this raid [to Lynchburg, Va.]. And there are plenty of humane Rebels. I have seen a good deal of it on this trip. War is a cruel business and there is brutality in it on all sides, but it is very idle to get up anxiety on account of any supposed peculiar cruelty on the part of Rebels. Keepers of prisons in Cincinnati, as well as in Danville, are hard-hearted and cruel.

76. I will not return! I will not come to an unjust court! Go to hell!

77. Now you, Coroticus- and your gangsters, rebels all against Christ, now where do you see yourselves? You gave away girls like prizes: not yet women, but baptized. All for some petty temporal gain that will pass in the very next instant. 'Like a cloud passes, or smoke blown in the wind,' so will 'sinners, who cheat, slip away from the face of the Lord. But the just will feast for sure' with Christ. 'They will judge the nations' and unjust kings 'they will lord over' for world after world. Amen.

78. May God inspire these men sometime to come to their senses in regard to God again, so that they may repent, however latter day, of their grave crimes, namely homicide against the brothers of the Lord, and that they free these baptized women whom they have taken, so that then they may deserve to live to God and be made whole once more, here, now and for eternity.

79. Why, Sir, it is difficult to settle the proportion of iniquity between them.

80. Here's to the next insurrection of the negroes in the West Indies.

81. How seldom, friend! a good great man inherits Honor or wealth, with all his worth and pains! It sounds like stories from the land of spirits If any man obtain that which he merits, Or any merit that which he obtains.

82. I ask no favors for my sex. I surrender not our claim to equality. All I ask of our brethren is, that they will take their feet from off our necks, and permit us to stand upright on that ground which God designed us to occupy.

83. It must be admitted that women have but little sense of justice, and this is no doubt connected with the preponderance of envy in their mental life.

84. Just as a vagrant accused of stealing a carrot from a field stands before a comfortably seated judge who keeps up an elegant flow of queries, comments and witticisms while the accused is unable to stammer a word, so truth stands before an intelligence which is concerned with the elegant manipulation of opinions. [p.68]

85. But the iniquity of oblivion blindly scattereth her poppy, and deals with the memory of men without distinction to merit of perpetuity. Who can but pity the founder of the Pyramids? Herostratus lives that burnt the Temple of Diana, he is almost lost that built it.

86. [Gould's] historical account is highly selective; he asserts the non-objectivity of science so that he can test for scientific truth, flagrantly, by the standards of his own social and political convictions; and by linking his critique to the quest for fairness and justice, he exploits the generous instincts of his readers.: In effect, we see here Lysenkoism risen again: an effort to outlaw a field of science because it conflicts with a political dogma.

87. 'In time, we shall be in a position to bestow on South Africa the greatest possible gift-a more human face.

88. One-half of the people of this nation to-day are utterly powerless to blot from the statute books an unjust law, or to write there a new and a just one.

89. The only chance women have for justice in this country is to violate the law, as I have done, and as I shall continue to do.

90. I do not ask the clemency of the court. I came into it to get justice, having failed in this, I demand the full rigors of the law.

91. Even, under such circumstances, a commoner of England, tried before a jury of Lords, would have far less cause to complain than should I, a woman, tried before a jury of men.

92. But, yesterday, the same man-made forms of law, declared it a crime punishable with $1,000 fine and six months' imprisonment, for you, or me, or any of us, to give a cup of cold water, a crust of bread, or a night's shelter to a panting fugitive as he was tracking his way to Canada. And every man or woman in whose veins coursed a drop of human sympathy violated that wicked law, reckless of consequences, and was justified in so doing.

93. On the political front, we have always pursued the path of truth and justice in our struggle for the legitimate rights of the Tibetan people. We have never indulged in distortions, exaggerations and criticism of the Chinese people. Neither have we harboured any ill will towards them. Above all, we have always held to our position of truth and justice without siding with any of the international political power blocks.

94. 'The division of the world into important and unimportant matters, which has always served to neutralize the key phenomena of social injustice as mere exceptions, should be followed up to the point where it is convicted of its own untruth. The division which makes everything objects must itself become an object of thought, instead of guiding it.'

95. Let us make it evident that we intend to do justice. Then let us make it equally evident that we will not tolerate injustice being done us in return. Let us further make it evident that we use no words which we are not which prepared to back up with deeds, and that while our speech is always moderate, we are ready and willing to make it good. Such an attitude will be the surest possible guarantee of that self-respecting peace, the attainment of which is and must ever be the prime aim of a self-governing people.

96. In our complex industrial civilization of today the peace of righteousness and justice, the only kind of peace worth having, is at least as necessary in the industrial world as it is among nations. There is at least as much need to curb the cruel greed and arrogance of part of the world of capital, to curb the cruel greed and violence of part of the world of labor, as to check a cruel and unhealthy militarism in international relationships.

97. Peace is generally good in itself, but it is never the highest good unless it comes as the handmaid of righteousness; and it becomes a very evil thing if it serves merely as a mask for cowardice and sloth, or as an instrument to further the ends of despotism or anarchy.

98. A healthy hatred of scoundrels.

99. That very night while gentle sleep The urchin's eyelids kissed, Two stern-faced men set out from Lynn, Through the cold and heavy mist; And Eugene Aram walked between, With gyves upon his wrist.

100. Let your conduct towards men have some uniformity.