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Justice Quotes

By a wide margin the most quotes here are Shakespeare’s, and the two judges who follow him, Lord Mansfield and Lord Kenyon, are a sign that this page leans on the bench as much as the stage. Seneca and John Rawls fill out the top five.

Among the sourced entries, Bierce’s definition from 1911 describes justice as a commodity the State sells to citizens as a reward for their allegiance, taxes and personal service. Sartre’s Dirty Hands (1948) and Wilde’s Ballad of Reading Gaol (1898) are here for what they say about guilt, not courts.

Three lines carry flags: Marlowe’s “the justice of my quarrel,” Augustine on charity and withheld justice, and a Martin Luther King Jr. line about peace and justice being goals for man.

Random quote on Justice

Most quoted on justice:

I must lay down the law as I understand it, and as I read it in books of authority.

John Coleridge, 1st Baron Coleridge Reg. v. Ramsey (1883)

He had no right to take the law into his own hands.

Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon Tarleton v. McGawley (1795)

I cannot help thinking that where a person appeals to the Law of England, he must take his remedy according to the Law of England to which he has appealed.

John Eardley Wilmot Robinson v. Bland (1760)

Aucupia verborum sunt judice indigna: Catching at words is unworthy of a Judge.

Sir Henry Hobart, 1st Baronet Sheffield v. Ratcliffe (1615)

If the law be thought to be improper or inconvenient, application to correct it must be made elsewhere, and not to those who are bound by the repeated and solemn judgments of their predecessors.

Sir Francis Buller, 1st Baronet Bishop of London v. Ffytche (1800)

The laws of England will protect the rights of British subjects, and give a remedy for a grievance committed by one British subject upon another, in whatever country that may be done.

Sir John Bayley, 1st Baronet Forbes v. Cochrane and Cockburn (1824)

By our rules we cannot receive a letter from a friend.

Sir John Bayley, 1st Baronet King v. Knowles (1820)

There written all
Black as the damning drops that fall
From the denouncing Angel's pen,
Ere Mercy weeps them out again.

Thomas Moore Lalla Rookh (1817)

There's not a crime
But takes its proper change out still in crime
If once rung on the counter of this world.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning Aurora Leigh (1856)

Commonly we say a Judgment falls upon a Man for something in him we cannot abide.

John Selden

The jury, passing on the prisoner's life,
May in the sworn twelve have a thief or two
Guiltier than him they try.

William Shakespeare Measure for Measure (1603)

Man is unjust, but God is just; and finally justice
Triumphs.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie (1847)

Yet I shall temper so
Justice with mercy, as may illustrate most
Them fully satisfied, and thee appease.

John Milton

Thyself shalt see the act:
For, as thou urgest justice, be assur'd
Thou shalt have justice more than thou desir'st.

William Shakespeare

Law is a Bottomless-Pit, it is a Cormorant, a Harpy, that devours every thing.

John Arbuthnot

And folks are beginning to think it looks odd,
To choke a poor scamp for the glory of God.

James Russell Lowell A Fable for Critics (1848)

He hath resisted law,
And therefore law shall scorn him further trial
Than the severity of the public power.

William Shakespeare

But in these nice sharp quillets of the law,
Good faith, I am no wiser than a daw.

William Shakespeare

In law, what plea so tainted and corrupt
But, being season'd with a gracious voice,
Obscures the show of evil?

William Shakespeare

Truth is its [justice's] handmaid, freedom is its child, peace is its companion, safety walks in its steps, victory follows in its train; it is the brightest emanation from the Gospel; it is the greatest attribute of God.

Sydney Smith Lady Holland's Memoir (1855)

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